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| Monday, June 26th, 2006 | | 7:52 pm |
Spam and Funny Names
Have you ever noticed the funny names in the From: line on spam emails (think "Armenian J. Esophagus" or "Attentively E. Temporal")? You know why they do that? Wikipedia explains why: Another method used to masquerade spam as legitimate messages is the use of autogenerated sender names in the From: field, ranging from realistic ones such as "Jackie F. Bird" to (either by mistake or intentionally) bizarre attention-grabbing names...
Have you ever heard of a real person with a name like "Armenian J. Esophagus"? I hadn't until recently.. there is apparently some porno star who calls herself "Bolivia Samsonite"--obviously not her given name. That actually sounds like one of the names that you might see in the From: line in an ad for "V1@gra", or "ch3ap s0ftwares" or.... "fr33 x_x_x p0rrn." I don't know about you, but I find the names "Armenian J. Esophagus" and "Bolivia Samsonite" amusing; maybe I just have a bizarre sense of humor. | | 2:24 am |
| | Wednesday, June 14th, 2006 | | 12:10 am |
Michael Scheuer vs. Jason Burke: Is al-Qaeda Winning or Losing?
From Jeffrey Cozzens at the Counterterrorism Blog, in reference to recent analysis by Michael Scheuer and Jason Burke:
The following analysis considers Burke’s and Scheuer’s views, whichgenerally summarize those found in the wider U.S. counter-terrorism community, then offers its own set of criteria that might be appropriate to consider in any “scorecard” that evaluates our current efforts against global jihadism.
First, concerning Burke’s analysis in the Guardian, several prominent themes emerge in his argument that AQ is losing:
•Burke’s determination that we are winning is based upon a broad-brush approach that factors in a holistic picture of the evolution of Islamic militancy, its root causes and nuanced, regional forms. It is also obvious that he considers bin Laden to be merely a spoke in the evolving “wheel” of militant Islam.
•Reason for Western optimism 1: AQ’s strategy of igniting a global awakening has faltered because of its exclusive reliance upon violence.
•Reason for Western optimism 2: Islamic militancy is serious, but it has not impacted the West to a large extent. We can live with minor inconvenience and restrictions.
•Reason for Western optimism 3: Polls demonstrate that the vast majority of Muslims worldwide prefer non-violent contention and are increasingly less enthusiastic in their admiration of bin Laden.
Scheuer’s assessment is markedly different; as seen below, he argues that UBL is likely pleased with where things stand today:
•Scheuer’s argument that UBL and the global jihadi movement have some reason for optimism is based on a qualitative method that attempts to assess the present geopolitical context “through our enemies’ eyes.” In so many words, Scheuer pays homage to the jihadi perception of UBL as a mujadid—one who would awaken Muslims to their obligations—and therefore views him with central importance as an inspirational figure.
•Reason for AQ’s optimism 1: As UBL has noted, he never considered himself (or AQ, for that matter) the sole carrier of the burden of jihad; it was merely an incendiary force. The killing of individual jihadi figureheads like al-Zarqawi will therefore not eliminate this function.
•Reason for AQ’s optimism 2: Western policies in the Islamic world have given prescience to the arguments of UBL and other figureheads; thus UBL’s “tight focus” on these Western policies is motivating “an increasing number” of Muslims to respond to his call to arms.
• Reason for AQ’s optimism 3: There have been a number of AQ-inspired—though not directly linked—attacks around the globe.I am in the middle on this one; in the short run I am far less optimistic than Burke, given the threat of homegrown attacks in Western countries. In the long run, I believe we will win, but jihadist terrorism will be a serious problem for the next couple of decades at least. Strategy Unit has this to say, relying on John Robb's "global guerrillas" model of 4GW: Strategy Unit has focused on the fact that “Islamic Terrorism” (for lack of a better, shorter term) as it exists today is very much the global guerilla movement that John Robb has been writting about.
The recent arrests in Toronto, aborting a potential attacking, and a recent article by Michael Scheuer (author of Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War), reinforce the position that Islamic Terrorism is an organic, decentralized beast. Its bigger than Al-Qaida, bigger than Bin Laden and bigger than the now deceased al-Zarqawi. Al-Qaida does have an important role, but as the instigator, the proclaimed vanguard, of a wider Islamist social movement....“As this war is more of cross between an insurgency and a social movement, there maybe no clean cessation of violence in the near or distant future. And in this conflict, there will be no battlefields, but rather our adversaries will be attached as a Global Swarm as Global Guerillas.” | | Saturday, June 10th, 2006 | | 8:31 pm |
More on DHS vs NY
This woman says essentially the same thing as Gelinas and the Popular Mechanics article.
June 08, 2006
Karen J. Greenberg: A World of Difference: Homeland Security versus New York City
Here's a way to feel better about the Department of Homeland Security's evident disregard for the safety of New Yorkers, not to mention Washingtonians. Years ago, New York Knicks Basketball fans found a way to turn unfairness to their advantage. It was the early 90's, part of the Larry Bird/Robert Parish Boston Celtics era. Game after game, the Knicks, led by Patrick Ewing, would be fouled, sometimes flagrantly, by the contemptuous Who-Me? Celtics. Rather than complain, Coach Pat Riley's Knicks just kept doing their thing, playing with the knowledge that their only option was to play better basketball, to make up in talent for the calls against them. They couldn't rely upon a fair game. So they didn't. They compensated. And more often than not, they got the job done, winning 15 of 19 games against the Celtics between 1991 and 1994 and two out of four division titles.
In the current debate with Homeland Security, this should be the model for the New York City Police Department. In many ways, it already has been. The new DHS budget cuts for NYC, down 40 per cent from last year is merely an indication of a broader, remarkably consistent story. The truth is that since the establishment of DHS in 2003, New York City has essentially been on its own. Repeated conversations with New York counterterrorism officials between 2003 and 2005 convinced me that the NYPD's relationship with Homeland Security was of no practical significance. Meetings take place between lower level officials, but the head of Homeland Security is not in regular contact with the counterterrorism folks at the NYPD. This seems to be a fairly serious flaw in the system. Especially when Michael Chertoff has implicitly acknowledged what all leading experts on Al Qaeda assert, namely, that the most commonly cited U.S. target in terrorist chatter is New York City.
One could debate the rhetoric of DHS in justifying its longstanding policy of minimizing support to New York City. For example, even if New York City did not house any monuments of national significance, the City itself is a monument of national significance, where almost any target will do. One could laugh at the insistence that the City filed its papers the wrong way and at the DHS refusal to express any shame over a policy in which bureaucratic rules take precedence over the merits of national security.
But rather than resort to such all-too-easy ridicule, or to the facile explanation of pork-barrel politics, it would serve us well, as New Yorkers and as Americans, to consider the possibility that DHS has developed its tight-fisted policy towards New York City for a reason. Maybe this isn't just a mistake or an oversight. Maybe the anti-New York policy is intentional and has a basis in vastly different approaches to counterterrorism. Looking at DHS and NYPD policies, the following points of difference seem worthy of consideration.
First: Gadgetry versus Human Resources. DHS expenditures reveal a penchant for gadgets and technology, for material expenditures to fight terror, be they the now famous air-conditioned garbage trucks or body armor for fire department dogs. Its Strategic Plan and its various press releases emphasize technology, equipment and training, ostensibly for the use of these new technologies. But technology can be a feel-good yet ineffective panacea. By contrast, the NYPD Counterterrorism strategy has emphasized the need for human capacity. The City officials' reasoning is that the more eyes and ears there are on the ground, the safer the City is. Homeland Security has been outspoken in its opposition to this labor-intensive tactic, complaining, for example, about the use of funds for "overtime" hours. DHS has also opposed Operation Atlas which deploys hundreds of police officers at a time. When appropriate, that is, when it is suited to likely targets, New York has welcomed technology, but not as a substitute for understanding the evolving threat and human intelligence gathering. As we learned from 9/11, and as counterterrorism police around the world, from Israel to London will tell you, there is no substitute for human intelligence and human resources. The only "magic" that accompanies gadgetry is a false sense of security.
Second: Prevention as separable from Catastrophe Response. One of the fundamental elements of DHS from the start has been the mingling of general catastrophe response efforts and preventive efforts. The agency is both border security and homeland disaster response agency and its budget reflects an unwillingness to distinguish readily between the two. The NYPD Counterterrorism Unit has long emphasized the distinctiveness of counterterrorism. This is a discreet area of expertise devoted to successful prevention of terrorism. Confusing prevention and response, overlapping border security and disaster relief, can only dilute the effectiveness of Homeland Security, which is in the unenviable role of promising all things to all people yet satisfying few.
Third: In Search of a Team Player. The NYPD has essentially been a lone player since 9/11. It has its own research teams, its own strategic plans and even its own agents, for intelligence purposes, assigned to several cities around the world. DHS seems very much to want to be the point agency on national security, which is as it should be. But it has also seemed willing to impede the independent measures that New York City has taken in order to be effective. The fact is that the City has had little choice in the matter. Whether DHS likes it or not, the NYPD, without supportive partnership, must act on its own.
Fourth: Our Way or No Way. In a related, but separate operational matter, the DHS seems to want to craft its national security strategy without a true consideration of organized coordination of information and resources across the country. For consultation and coordination with other cities, New York City is left to its own personal relationships rather than being able to join a DHS-created national policy conversation. There is to date no best practices database at DHS which catalogues and disseminates information about critical infrastructure for example in Chicago, Los Angeles, and elsewhere. A system for sharing of intelligence has failed as well. DHS's nationwide electronic system for disseminating intelligence and information to state and local law enforcement agencies, and for state and local agencies to share among themselves, is apparently not operational. The FBI, and personal relationships nationwide, remain the NYPD's only access to classified intelligence and critical infrastructure awareness. Without coordinated information sharing, the effectiveness of the nation's security is unquestionably reduced.
Fifth: Threat Assessment, not Politics. Good threat assessment is essential to effective counterterrorism. Allocating significant counterterrorism funds to low-risk regions and cities can compromise the overall integrity of a nation's counterterrorism strategy. Here again, New York has often tried to stick to the merits rather than grant favors. A leading official at the NYPD once told me, "You would not believe the kinds of requests we get citing fear of terrorism as a reason for a special favor. Parking, for example. For cultural centers, businesses and more. They ask for the streets to be cleared and say it is for safety; in essence, it's for their convenience. We don't yield to this." Political considerations, in other words, are kept out of security policy decisions. DHS's refusal to prioritize its expenditures based on serious threat assessments is a scandal. Are radiological detectors in the midwest and Alaskan night vision goggles really more urgently needed than surveillance security on Wall Street?
Alarming about the DHS public rebuke towards New York is not just the agency's contempt for New York or its apparent disregard for operational input. The shortchanging of the country's primary terrorist target is most disturbing for what it reveals about DHS's half-baked approach to counterterrorism. Good counterterrorism is about human intelligence, about coordination, and above all about serious consideration of the potential threats. It is not about spin, or about who has the most control, the most toys, or the most political favors to dispense.
The nation would do well to take a page from the book of the New York City Police Department and to reconsider the mission and priorities of DHS. Meanwhile, the City, following the Knicks of yore, will continue to do what is necessary and mount the most effective strategic defense that it can, given the vacuum of leadership from Washington. Adequate federal funds would be of immeasurable help, but even without them, the City will do its best to make New Yorkers safe. The difference now is that the taxpayers of New York rather than the federal government will bear the burden of safety. Still, none of us should overlook the fact that in rising to the occasion, New Yorkers will be protecting the country as well as themselves. For there should be no mistake about it: another attack on New York City will harm the nation as a whole. Osama bin Laden understands this. Why doesn't Michael Chertoff?
I saw the warning signs of some of these problems back in 2003 and 2004 when I worked in emergency management--in particular, a focus on gadgets, and poor coordination with local agencies. PS: Unfortunately this blog has a lot of idiots in its comments section. Best to ignore them and just read the article. | | Thursday, June 8th, 2006 | | 5:51 pm |
Good news (Zarqawi dead)
This was the only thing that kept today from being a complete wreck of a day. Video of the bombing raid is on this site as well. All I can say to Zarqawi is: rot in hell you bastard. Say hello to Hitler, Stalin, and Talaat Pasha for me. And thanks USAF for taking out the trash. | | 5:48 pm |
Popular Mechanics on NYPD Counterterrorism Division
Great article from Popular Mechanics. Good quotes:
New York has become a testing ground for urban terrorism prevention in a major city, integrating new thinking and sophisticated technology into every level of the force. And, the lessons learned are beginning to influence police forces in other cities. In 2004, Los Angeles launched Operation Archangel to identify possible targets and to develop protection plans for them, and the Chicago Police Department earlier this year began providing five days of terrorism training to all of its 13,500 officers. Several big cities, including Washington, D.C., Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Chicago, even formed a network to gather and share intelligence--an interagency version of what New York built in-house. The NYPD provides valuable consultation to many other local police departments and even state and federal agencies, from the Department of Defense to the Illinois State Police. In fact, international police forces from the Netherlands, Singapore and other countries have sent representatives to the NYPD to learn its tactics.This is a model program; I hope that other agencies emulate it: By definition, terrorism prevention must be pre-emptive. To stop attacks before they occur, local police must build and maintain relationships within their communities to gather information, staying on the lookout for activities that might raise flags. That's the logic behind the NYPD's Operation Nexus, implemented in late 2002. Nexus reaches out to businesses to collect intelligence and raise awareness about terrorist tactics. The 9/11 hijackers attended flight schools, for example, and now cops have identified 80 other categories of business--everything from martial arts studios to scuba shops--that terrorists might use to acquire training or materials.
"In order for us to do our job, we have to think creatively and acknowledge that our enemies are also tactically creative and resourceful," says Lt. Christopher Higgins, who oversees both Nexus and Hercules. "We have to constantly think: 'How can this be used against us?'"
Nexus has logged more than 25,000 outreach visits since its inception, and all are detailed in its database. "We know where every castor bean is in the city," Higgins says, referring to a plant used to make the poison ricin.
Information from operatives abroad is combined with intelligence-gathering efforts within the city. After the London bus and subway bombings in 2005, an NYPD detective was the first foreign law enforcement official on the scene. He reported that the bombs appeared to have been made with hexamine, a compound often used as fuel for camping stoves. Within hours, Nexus detectives had visited every business in New York that sold hexamine fuel tablets. | | Tuesday, June 6th, 2006 | | 10:33 pm |
Stratfor and Douglas Farah on Somalia
Stratfor open-source commentary (from an email sent to me by a friend and former colleague): Geopolitical Diary: The Dilemma of Mogadishu
The city of Mogadishu has fallen to Islamists, according to
extensive media reports. Mogadishu is the capital of Somalia, where
the United States intervened in 1991 and then withdrew after
sustaining casualties. The Americans had intervened in an attempt
first to alleviate a major food shortage -- and then, as the scope
of the mission crept upward, they ended up fighting against the
warlords who had precipitated the food shortage. After pulling out,
the United States lost interest in Somalia until 9/11 -- when it
developed an urgent interest in it, fearing that it would serve as
a base for militant Islamists.
It is not clear how the Islamists will behave having won the city,
but there is no reason to doubt their commitment to their cause,
nor the possibility (or probability) that they would provide
safe-havens to al Qaeda and other militant Islamists. The United
States maintains a small force of U.S. Marines and Special Forces
at a former French base in Djibouti, north of Somalia, and has been
waging a quiet war throughout the region against Islamists. Somalia
has been a critical piece of that war, both for its own sake and
because it can affect the entire region, including Kenya, Ethiopia
and Eritrea.
Ironically, the United States has fought the war in Somalia through
proxies -- the warlords it was fighting against in the early 1990s.
There were few other options. Unless the Americans wanted to
intervene directly -- and after the last experience no one was
eager for that -- they would have to use surrogates, and the
warlords were the only option. The proxies served their purpose
over the five years of the U.S.-jihadist war, but now they appear
to have buckled and lost the prize to the Islamists.
This is obviously bad news for the United States. As bogged down as
the United States is in Iraq and Afghanistan, it has been able
until now to claim that not a single Muslim government had been
overthrown by Islamists, and that most governments were cooperating
with the United States. It can be argued that the conquest of
Mogadishu does not mean the Islamists will become the government of
Somalia, and that no one was overthrown -- you don't overthrow
anarchy and chaos. Those are good arguments, but at the end of the
day it will be perceived in the region that the United States has
lost an important fight. The argument that Iraq was a tactical
problem but that the broad strategy was working has been undermined
-- and as a result, so will be the psychological strength of the
U.S. presence.
Psychology aside, the strengthening power of the Islamists in
Somalia poses a direct threat to the United States. Right now, al
Qaeda and related groups have sanctuary in areas of Afghanistan and
Pakistan, in parts of Iraq, and perhaps quietly in some other
places -- but not in any country as a whole. That sort of sanctuary
is what al Qaeda desperately needs, and if the Islamists can expand
their victory to pacifying the country, that is exactly what they
will have.
The obvious answer would be for the United States to intervene
directly in Somalia. Had Iraq not turned out as it did, that might
be an option; but under current international and domestic
political circumstances, a new visit to the home of Black Hawk Down
is not going to happen. That means the only option the United
States has will be to increase aid to the warlords; but the problem
there is not money, it is motivation and competence. Someone will
reason that there is nothing there that a few more Special Forces
wouldn't cure. But that alone won't work, and thus the Americans
will be on the famous slippery slope once again. This time it is
unlikely that they will start walking down.
This leaves the question of whether there will be space for
militants in Somalia. Jihadists, both native and foreign, have in
all likelihood been there for a while. But if there is a degree of
stability and security, a place where training camps can start
teaching the crafts needed for international operations, Somalia
could allow a new generation of well-trained al Qaeda operatives to
emerge in a few years, a generation quite different from the
bumbling wannabes that currently pass for al Qaeda.
This is a serious event in the war, and Washington will have to
take some action. The likely one will be increasing money and
sending in some more advisers. The best the United States can hope
for at the moment is to maintain a level of instability in Somalia
that even al Qaeda would find unsuitable for training purposes.
Just as important will be how this affects the Islamic world's
psychology. Al Jazeera was trumpeting it all day as what it was --
a blow to the United States.
Douglas Farah is very knowledgeable about both Islamic extremism and African affairs; here is what he says:
"The victory of radical Islamist militias in Somalia, with the subsequent vow of their leaders establish an Islamist state, highlights the dangers of festering stateless areas and the attractions they present for terrorists, transnational criminal organizations and other armed, non-state groups.
The victory also highlights the limits of U.S. power in those regions of the world. Despite some covert U.S. support for the secular warlords in the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism-the amount is not known-and the clear efforts of the U.S. Joint Combined Task Force-Horn of Africa to keep the situation from ending like this, the possibility again exists of an enclave that will provide al Qaeda and its affiliates with a safe haven to train, practice and seek refuge.
It is not clear what the U.S-backed alliance is or what it really represented except for several of the most violent elements of Somalian society that were not in the Islamist camps. Nor is it entirely clear what the Islamist groups represent other than a desire to install Sharia law across the land.
This is similar to the advantages enjoyed by al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, although the Taliban had a semblance of a central government, while Somalia does not.
Somalia offers virtually no economic benefits to terrorists and other non-state actors, in contrast to Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. What it does offer, however, is proximity to numerous battlefronts where militant Islamists want to fight and where they have a well-developed infrastructure-Kenya (home of the 1998 Embassy bombing), Yemen (the USS Cole), and other nearby points of interest.
The current intelligence apparatus has yet to come up with an effective way of recognizing, never mind effectively combating, this type of non-state threat. There is no political appetite or capacity to put boots on the ground in every potential trouble spot. But nor is there an understanding of how these stateless regions operate, where the pressure points are and how to contain, if not stop, radical Islamist groups from providing sanctuary for themselves and others under their protection.
Nor does there appear to be a clear understanding of how and when to arm and create effective proxies in wars where there are those willing to fight for U.S. interests. We have no intelligence gathering, let alone dominance, in those regions. We simply cannot fight those wars ourselves and expect any meaningful progress.....
Somalia has no “honey pot” to draw outside entrepreneurs. But Osama bin Laden has had his operatives there before, training the militias that downed the U.S. Blackhawk in 1993. Several of the East African operatives involved in the Embassy bombing hid in Somalia and some continue to do so. A sanctuary can help not only Islamists but give the Islamists something to offer-safety-to other groups on whom they depend for certain commodities-weapons and ammunition." | | 10:35 am |
| | Sunday, June 4th, 2006 | | 3:38 am |
Monitoring and Infiltrating Jihadist Web Communities
Two American women--Shannen Rossmiller and Rita Katz--have devoted much of their lives to tracking the activities of jihadists on the Internet. Very good (and surprisingly positive) account of Rita Katz and the SITE Institute from the New Yorker:
Before the September 11, 2001, attacks, the official counterterrorism agencies paid relatively little attention to the jihadis’ online presence. But in the past few years that has changed, in large measure because of changes in the way terror networks operate. “Nearly everything about Al Qaeda that matters is happening online right now,” Peter Bergen, a journalist and terrorism expert, said. Some analysts believe that Al Qaeda today is a model of what is called “leaderless resistance”: self-appointed cells operating with help and inspiration from materials that they find online. Traffic rose dramatically after Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq, posted a video of the beheading of the American contractor Nicholas Berg.
“It’s not as if Al Qaeda were inventing this,” Jessica Stern, a terrorism specialist who served on the National Security Council under President Clinton, said. What’s unique about Islamic terror and the Internet is that there is up-to-the-minute access to what terrorists are thinking. Rita Katz is, in a sense, the natural complement, the engineer of a leaderless counter-resistance to the terrorist groups. “Some people think that she’s a zealot,” Stern said when I asked her about Katz, “but only a zealot would provide this kind of service.”
Shannen Rossmiller, a town judge in rural Montana, spends much of her time infiltrating jihad web forums. She has taught herself Arabic (Katz, a native of Iraq, speaks Arabic as her first language) and twice helped catch Americans trying to help al-Qaeda (one case involved a Muslim convert in the US military who was trying to provide information on how to attack US armored vehicles.) A good excerpt:
Still, the outspoken small-town judge raises the remarkable reality of the government regularly using a a self-appointed, self-trained Internet sleuth to help fight terrorism at home and abroad. Given several chances to do so, no one in the intelligence community characterized Rossmiller as a crank. | | 1:57 am |
Possible Chemical Attack in the UK
From MSNBC: LONDON - British anti-terrorist police are hunting for a “dirty” chemical bomb that could be used in an attack in Britain after a major raid failed to uncover a device they believe exists, newspapers reported on Saturday.
More than 250 officers, some wearing chemical, biological and radiological protection suits, shot one man and arrested another during a dawn raid on an east London house on Friday.
From ThreatsWatch:
Authorities fear that closed areas such as the London subway or bars full of World Cup fans may have been potential intended targets of the chemical attack. The one known vest in question remains unaccounted for and there is also no reported indication of whether this may have been part of a larger operation with more facilities and devices. For a small chemical device, small closed areas with functioning controlled ventilation systems are more conducive to lethal dispersal than outside open elements.
The information came from an informant who was in contact with the two young men of Bangladeshi origin who were targeted by the raid.
The possible nature of the device is described here, by the Times of London:
"THE adapted jacket being sought by anti-terrorist officers after the raid yesterday was almost certainly intended as a suicide weapon, even if the explosives it contains are not sufficiently powerful to kill.
The garment, which was likened by security sources to a photographer’s jacket or waistcoat, is said to have carried an explosive charge that would be used to release a poisonous chemical in a confined space.
Assuming that the device was to have been triggered by the wearer rather than remotely, the bomber would have stood little chance of escaping himself, explosives experts said.
The use of a charge to spread a chemical weapon, however, is somewhat puzzling, as there are less technologically sophisticated methods of releasing many toxic agents that would be less likely to fail.
A bag containing a volatile liquid or gas could simply be punctured, releasing toxic vapours. An explosive charge might also destroy some of the device’s lethal payload.
Professor Hans Michels, of Imperial College, London, said the explosive approach suggests three design possibilities.
If the chemical was enclosed in a pressurised container, similar to an aerosol can, then bursting or piercing it would have the effect of causing a small explosion and scattering its contents over a wide area. Such a device could easily be concealed in a thick jacket, he said.
A second possibility is that the agent is in the form of a powder, which would require a small explosive blast to release it. In an enclosed space, such as a train carriage or a bar, it would be readily inhaled or, depending on the chemical used, it could poison people through contact with the skin.
It is also possible that the device relied on a reaction between two chemicals which, when mixed, would produce a toxic gas such as chlorine. The explosion would ensure that the agents mixed with one another, as well as supplying energy that might be needed to start a reaction.
“You would have to assume that the bomber would not be planning on escape with a device like this,” Professor Michels said. “If you use an explosive charge to release something, the person who detonates it is always going to be the first sufferer, so it would be a suicide weapon.”
This is one possibility (there is some dispute over the veracity of this theory), but another is a device that simply releases toxins. Jihad websites and training manuals have featured detailed designs for chlorine and cyanide devices, and instructions on their use. Some news reports have suggested that the agent was a nerve agent such as sarin, but these types of agents are far more difficult to produce (requiring synthesis under complex conditions) than cyanide or chlorine. Generally speaking, sarin synthesis requires precursors that are not easily available relative to those needed to produce cyanide or chlorine,* and a strong knowledge of organic chemistry; the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo, with large facilities and trained chemists, had difficulty in producing it. Again, we appear to see a small group with no contact with "al-Qaeda central." This is what we have to look for in the USA: While there have been efforts to share more intelligence with allies, this new generation of terrorists are more discreet than their predecessors. They no longer gather at mosques, where clerics rant against Western governments, or congregate with known militants. Instead they prefer to set up their own youth clubs, using back rooms in their parents’ houses to devise their schemes.On the other hand, law enforcement and intelligence in the US has much to be thankful for relative to their UK counterparts. The UK has hundreds of, perhaps over a thousand, suspected jihadists, and at least 20 plots have been uncovered in the past 4 years (13 attack plans may be active currently).The bad fish swim in a very deep sea in Britain; one has only to look at the responses from the terrorists' neighbors (mostly Bangladeshi Muslims), or the polls that show widespread sympathy for al-Qaeda ideology and even for the 7/7 bombers. *An article from Scientific American, published in Dec 2001 discusses the availability of G-series nerve gas precursors. Update: Contrary to initial reports, the device does not seem to have been completed; it appears to have been intended to use an explosive charge to disperse cyanide. | | 12:58 am |
Homeland Insecurity [Response vs. Prevention, Flawed Metrics]
Some perspective on the controversy over the recent HSGP grant allocations: Homeland Insecurity by Nicole Gelinas, City-Journal.orgMissing landmarks aren't the problem [Very true] [I have underlined portions of the article that I think make the most important points].
"Griping about federal homeland security money has become a New York tradition since shortly after September 11, 2001. This year, city and state leaders have reason to scream louder than usual: President Bush’s Department of Homeland Security has slashed Gotham’s grant 40 percent, despite New York’s always having been the Islamic radicals’ American target of choice. But lost in the outrage over Chertoff’s risible finding that New York has “zero national monuments or icons” is the real reason for New York’s funding loss: a fatal confusion over what homeland security funds are actually for.
Two years ago, the problem with federal home-sec funds was supposedly pork-barrel politics. When the Republican National Convention came to town in 2004, New York pols, including Mayor Bloomberg, spent the week handing out information to delegates and national reporters to illustrate how Congress’s spending formula hamstrung the DHS into awarding rural cities and towns in places like Wyoming and Alaska far more home-sec dollars per person than high-risk places like New York City.
It proved an effective campaign. Congress fixed that problem last summer, to much self-congratulation. Now, while Congress guarantees that each state gets a tiny minimum of one pool of home-sec funds, the executive branch—that is, DHS secretary Michael Chertoff and his underlings—supposedly allocates the bulk of the funding based on threat, risk, and effectiveness of spending. Under that model, even though small towns represented by powerful Congressmen always will get some DHS sweetener, cities like New York, DC, and L.A. should be shoo-ins for most of the money.
That’s why New York felt slapped in the face when Chertoff announced this year’s grants this week. But the problem isn’t how DHS bureaucrats should categorize skyline icons like the Brooklyn Bridge and the Citicorp Center, both previous targets of credible threats. (the DHS put them in categories like “bridge” and "tall office building," instead of calling them national landmarks.)
The real problem is that much of the rest of the nation, with Bush administration encouragement, views the DHS as a giant source of free “first-responder” equipment. States, with input from local officials, apply for neat little funding packages based on proposals to buy capital equipment like superior communications systems to use in responding quickly in a bomb attack, hazardous-materials equipment to mitigate the effects of a biological attack, specialized fire trucks, and so forth.
The idea, in the DHS’s view, is that each city has a finite need for such equipment: you can only have so many chemical suits. Once a city has bought its equipment, or trained its people, it’s done, and the next year, some other city should receive a chance. In illustrating this point, one remark by Chertoff Thursday was telling: “After a city gets $500 million, more than twice as much as the next-largest city, is it correct to assume they should continue to get the same amount of money year after year after year after year with everybody else dividing up what remains?” he asked.
New York does spend some of its home-sec money on vital equipment and first-responder training, but it sees the role of the DHS differently: as a source of funds for ongoing intelligence gathering and other forms of threat prevention, carried out in large part by the NYPD. This philosophy requires manpower: more cops, more analysts, and more overtime.
In the NYPD’s view, it’s better to spend $10 million on police informers to learn that Islamists in Brooklyn want to carry out an attack than to buy $10 million worth of chemical suits to respond to the attack. This philosophy is a direct result of 9/11: despite the distracting bickering in front of the 9/11 Commission about how New York’s chain of command allegedly didn’t work well on that day, the best approach would have been to prevent 9/11 before it happened.
So Gotham wants to spend DHS money on programs like its Operation Impact, which trains police officers in counterterrorism tactics and devotes hundreds of officers to protect targets visibly, so that terrorists think New York may be “too hot” for an attack (in the words of a Brooklyn-Bridge plotter Iyman Faris to his al-Qaeda handlers). The DHS, conversely, sees such programs as “inefficient,” because, by definition, they never end.
This fundamental misunderstanding is curious, because Gotham’s approach to homeland security closely mirrors the Bush administration’s foreign-policy approach to the war on radical Islam: act now to prevent attacks, rather than act later to respond to them. The DHS’s philosophy, conversely, is more like the Clinton administration’s: wait for an attack and then respond.
It’s likely that New York will get its home-sec funding back, but for the wrong reason: Chertoff will be embarrassed into restoring it. But until the DHS learns that buying human intelligence is at least as worthy as buying haz-mat suits, the money it spends can’t make the nation safer."
It is important that responders are properly equipped, but the more fundamental task of prevention cannot be neglected, and New York has served as a model for the role of local law enforcement in preventing terrorism.
It is certainly possible that terrorists will attack outside NY, DC, or LA (we have seen jihadist terrorists based in Peoria, IL and Columbus, OH among other places), and there are plenty of critical facilities located outside those areas, but nearly all the actual and planned attacks we have seen in the past has focused on those three cities.
Christian Beckner of HLS Watch has some perspective below. He thinks it's a function of "garbage in, garbage out" with respect to threat and vulnerability metrics. Having a fair amount of experience with assessing/interpreting (and designing) such metrics, I am inclined to agree.
"I think this decision on NYC could be another example of the garbage-in, garbage-out (GIGO) problem, which I argued in April was a factor in the decision to cut Las Vegas from the list of high-risk cities. Some of the metrics on the one-page fact memo seem flawed in one way or another; for example, using the “quantity” of various asset types in these calculations fails to quantify their symbolic values, and using the quantity of threat reports from cities fails to account for different levels of discernment across cities about what constitutes suspicious activity."
But I also think that DHS’s processes and methodologies for assessing risk are still immature, and they have become over-fixated on data (cf. Sec. Chertoff’s Mother of All Spreadsheets) of questionable value, and insufficiently focused on the holistic, qualitative elements of threat assessment.
| | Saturday, June 3rd, 2006 | | 9:35 pm |
Canada raids update
One thing that is noteworthy is the connection these Canadian extremists apparently had to US-based counterparts who were planning attacks in the US."Authorities have, however, have found connections between the suspects in Canada and Atlanta and other suspected terror operatives abroad, including a group of men arrested in London last fall that includes an infamous computer specialist known as Irhabi007, the law enforcement official said. Irhabi means terrorist in Arabic.
Some of those discussions focused specifically on attacking targets in Atlanta and Washington, D.C., areas, the law enforcement official said. "The discussions were wide-ranging, about a whole range of targets," he said.
None of the plots were imminent, authorities said. But the alleged discussions ranged from attacking Canadian government buildings to blowing up oil refineries in the Unites States and a U.S. tower that they believed controlled aviation GPS systems, according to the federal law enforcement official and court documents filed in the case.
In addition to traveling from Atlanta to Canada, Sadequee and Ahmed also visited Washington, D.C., and videotaped the U.S. Capitol, the World Bank headquarters and some fuel storage facilities, federal prosecutors in New York said at a recent court hearing." It appears that the US-based extremists traveled by Greyhound bus to visit their Canadian counterparts (Sadequee was on the no-fly list, and terrorists are less likely to be detected while traveling by bus than while trying to fly.) Judging from the names that have been released, the group seems to be a mixture of Pakistanis or Bangladeshis, East Africans, and a couple converts to Islam (one appears to be Indian, another possibly of Caribbean origin, like one of the London bombers). Most are young Canadian citizens, many born and raised in Canada. Twelve are adults, and interestingly, five are teens under 18. In other words, homegrown attackers, like the London 7/7 guys.From an RCMP press release:
The 12 adults arrested are:
1. Fahim Ahmad, 21, Toronto;
2. Zakaria Amara, 20, Mississauga, Ont.;
3. Asad Ansari, 21, Mississauga;
4. Shareef Abdelhaleen, 30, Mississauga;
5. Qayyum Abdul Jamal, 43, Mississauga;
6. Mohammed Dirie, 22, Kingston, Ont.;
7. Yasim Abdi Mohamed, 24, Kingston;
8. Jahmaal James, 23, Toronto;
9. Amin Mohamed Durrani, 19, Toronto;
10. Steven Vikash Chand alias Abdul Shakur, 25, Toronto;
11. Ahmad Mustafa Ghany, 21, Mississauga;
12. Saad Khalid, 19, of Eclipse Avenue, Mississauga.
This is interesting:
"Authorities refused to give many specifics, but the Toronto Star newspaper reported some members of the group attended a training camp north of the city where they allegedly filmed a video imitating warfare."Another interesting note is that the men first attracted the attention of authorities because of Internet activity.
"The chain of events began two years ago, sparked by local teenagers roving through Internet sites, reading and espousing anti-Western sentiments and vowing to attack at home, in the name of oppressed Muslims here and abroad.
Their words were sometimes encrypted, the Internet sites where they communicated allegedly restricted by passwords, but Canadian spies back in 2004 were reading them. And as the youths' words turned into actions, they began watching them."
Neighbors also noticed suspicious activity associated with the suspects' homes. This shows why citizen tips can be an important tool in catching terrorists, and one that is more likely to be available in the US or Canada than in Britain and other European countries, where such groups would operate out of Muslim enclaves where their neighbors either sympathize with the terrorists or are too intimidated to report them.
Evan Kohlmann is quoted in the LA Times:
Local groups are loosely affiliated with similar cells around the world and communicate through the Internet, said terrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann, who runs the Web site globalterroralert.com. "There are small groups of people like that here," in the United States.
"I wouldn't be surprised if there are other cells like this," he said. "Unfortunately, that is the conclusion that has to be drawn from something like this. There is like a DNA-chain of operatives, and the thing that seems to connect them is computers, the Internet. They are organizing on their own, without the help of any senior operatives. These guys are self-motivated, and that's not encouraging when you are fighting a global war on terrorism, to see self-motivated terrorist cells popping up in Western countries like Canada." See my earlier post on Mustafa Setmariam Nasar for more on the new generation of jihadist terrorists. Update: The amount of ammonium nitrate they had (3 metric tons) is a clear indication that VBIED ("truck bomb") attacks against buildings were planned. The CSIS headquarters has been named as a possible target, but with that quantity, one can only guess at the identity of others (the CN Tower, stadiums, schools, et cetera). Given the quantity and the number of participants, multiple attacks were clearly planned. | | Wednesday, May 31st, 2006 | | 1:35 am |
Third-Generation Gangs and the Lessons of Sao Paulo
A good introduction to this problem is Max Manwaring "Street Gangs: The New Urban Insurgency"which deals with the phenomenon of third-generation gangs in Latin America (particularly Central America). Summary of the events in Sao Paulo from the Washington Post:
SAO PAULO, Brazil, May 15 -- Masked men have attacked bars, banks and police stations with machine guns, gangs have set buses on fire, and inmates at dozens of prisons have taken guards hostage in an unprecedented four-day wave of violence in Sao Paulo. More than 80 people have been killed, officials said Monday. As President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva prepared to send in 4,000 federal troops, officials worried that the violence could spread 220 miles northeast to Rio de Janeiro, where police were put on high alert and extra patrols were dispatched to slums where drug gang leaders live. ...
Leaders of First Capital Command gang, or PCC, reportedly used cellphones to order the attacks. Gang members then riddled police cars with bullets, hurled grenades at police stations and attacked officers at their homes and after-work hangouts. On Sunday night, the gang employed a new tactic: sending gunmen onto buses, ordering passengers and drivers off, and torching the vehicles.
Interesting note regarding the gang's intelligence capacities: they know where police officers live and targeted them at their homes.
Lind on the Sao Paulo situation:
The PCC emerges from the Post account and from its uprising in Sao Paulo as almost a model Fourth Generation organization, operating a network of structures parallel to those of the state that work more effectively than the state’s institutions. As the state retreats into ever-greater corruption and incapacity, the PCC has advanced by filling in the widening gaps. It has now reached the point where it can confront the state directly, while I think it is safe to say that the state cannot defeat much less destroy the PCC.
This is the most significant quote here:
Not only does this offer us a Fourth Generation model very different from what we confront in al Qaeda (it is more like Hamas and Hezbollah), it may also present a picture of what America will face coming out of its own prisons. Most American prisons are run not by the state but by racially-defined gangs. A prisoner’s well-being, even his survival, depends on his gang, not on the prison authorities. How long will it be before those gangs, like the PCC, will be able to reach outside the prisons and confront the American state? Police in cities such as Los Angeles might say that is happening now.
| | 12:55 am |
| | Tuesday, May 30th, 2006 | | 10:59 am |
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| | Monday, May 29th, 2006 | | 9:22 pm |
| | 3:46 am |
The Immigration Issue and Domestic Terrorism Threats
The responses by extremists to the controversy over immigration reform raises the concern of possible domestic terrorism attacks by rightwing extremists against Hispanics or politicians who support liberalized immigration policies.
As far as I can determine, immigration is the major issue that white supremacist groups are using to recruit. While immigrants from Mexico and other Latin countries used to settle in border states, there are now growing Hispanic populations in the rural South and Midwest. Recent demographic information feeds extremists’ fear of whites becoming a minority in the US; in addition, radicals who have long expected a race war between whites and minorities in the US see the demonstrations against the House immigration measures as evidence that the race war has begun.
Trends that increase the potential of violence
Many extremist groups (including National Vanguard, White Revolution, the Ku Klux Klan, League of the South, and Council of Conservative Citizens) have held rallies in recent days that featured immigration as a theme, and have protested at pro-immigrant events.
Following the pro-immigrant demonstrations in early April, message boards belonging to extremists (both explicitly supremacist such as Hal Turner and others such as the Save Our State forum and the Closed Borders Yahoo group) advocated violence; in each case there were suggestions on how to target pro-immigrant demonstrations and politicians who favored legal status for illegal immigration.
Members of the California-based, anti-immigration hate group Save Our State: "I see people with vans driving by, gunning them down on street corners, and leaving them to feed the buzzards and worms," wrote Save Our State activist "Cazamigrante" ("Migrant hunter")...
A Close Borders user wrote, "When violent responses occur, the amount of support they receive will amaze you. Furthermore, when people see how utterly unable to stop them the government is, it will incite further acts, and so, until it snowballs into a full-scale shooting war. Picture every major city within 500 miles of Mexico turned into Beirut in 1983. All that's missing is the spark, and it won't be long in coming."
Hal Turner, who has ties to the National Socialist Movement and a long history of death threats and advocacy of violence, linked a post on illegal immigration to a list of instructions on making bombs and chemical weapons. Turner has on several occasions advocated the murder of illegal immigrants and of Americans who "side with the illegals."
One trend that is noteworthy is the growth in racist skinhead activity, as described by the ADL (Feb 2006) and the FBI in an intelligence report from fall 2005. A recent ADL report describes hate incidents against Hispanics perpetrated by white supremacists; racist skinheads were involved in a large number of these incidents, particularly the worst (serious assaults and murders). Racist skinheads tend to be involved in assaults, murders, and other violent hate crimes, but they have a potential to engage in genuine acts of terrorism.
This potential has been demonstrated by several cases over the years (plans by the Confederate Hammerskins for a chemical attack on a synagogue in Dallas, TX; plans by the Fourth Reich Skinheads to target African-American churches and public figures; bombings targeting buildings associated with African-Americans and gays were carried out by American Front Skinheads (based in Oregon); and the purchase of fertilizer for IED construction by members of The Hated (based in New Jersey). Skinheads in Arizona were recently found in possession of pipe bombs, grenades, and illegal firearms; members of California skinhead groups have reportedly stockpiled weapons, possibly in preparation for a future race war.
Another disturbing trend is outreach by extreme anti-immigration groups to white supremacist groups. This appears to have happened in Tucson, Arizona, with the Border Guardians; one leader of the group (Laine Lawless) contacted the Ohio leader of the National Socialist Movement with an email detailing methods of violence and harassment to be used by neo-Nazis against those believed to be illegal immigrants.
| | Tuesday, May 23rd, 2006 | | 12:36 am |
The Northern Front: Radical Islamic threats in Canada
An analysis from Stratfor describes the national security and counterterrorism issues with regard to the Canadian border. It is interesting to note that the Pakistani and Bangladeshi terror suspects arrested in Atlanta (Syed Haris Ahmed and Ehsan Sadequee) traveled to Canada by bus and met with unknown individuals in Toronto to arrange for training in Pakistan and discuss targets in the US homeland. We have also had recent cases in which individuals from high-risk regions (including Pakistan) entered the US illegally via Canada. This final statement from the Stratfor piece is a good summary of why the northern border is so often overlooked: American concerns about the southern border with Mexico are deeply rooted in geography, history and culture and are, at bottom, sovereignty issues -- whereas the threats that have emerged from Canada are embedded in a more liberal political system.
Stated differently, the security risks to the United States arising from Canada are not so much products of fundamental, structural issues as they are the outgrowth of political attitudes and preferences. As a result, these security concerns tend to command less emotion and attention -- but they are, for all of that, no less real.
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