Terrorism and the Drug Trade

A good post from Douglas Farah, discussing the U.S. first drug conviction with a connection to fund-raising by a radical Islamist terrorist group - in this case, the Taliban. Key points:

As money from donations and charities becomes harder to acquire and move safely, the easy alternative is the drug trade.

I believe this is the future. Religious/ideological radicalism and organized criminal groups will become less and less distinguishable in the pipelines of illicit activities we see more and more.

This argument has been made many times before. Call this another data point.

All Politics Is Global?

Here's an interesting paper out of Australia, arguing that terrorism has, in essence, reached the viral stage:

[W]e are not now dealing with some kind of well drilled, structured organisation where people are recruited into a hierarchy and they are trained and given high-level skills that allow them to pull off spectacular acts of terrorism. More and more, terrorists are amateurs. They may be relatively incompetent, but they are also unlikely to be part of a network. Such people are not recruited – they recruit themselves.

Hmm...yes and no.

There certainly are some self-recruited amateurs out there, but it's incorrect to assume that all potential terrorists are amateurs.

The paper's author, Waleed Aly, argues that Osama bin Laden understands the new nature of globalized terrorism. The evidence of his new understanding is his evolving mode of communication in his video and audio addresses:

[Bin Laden] is not dressed in military fatigues. He’s dressed in the golden robes of a statesman. He has carefully cultivated a more youthful, vital appearance. He is not, and for a long time, has not been issuing strategic advice or instructions. He is not identifying targets. He is not addressing somebody he knows personally and with details of the next operation and how it will be conducted. ... bin Laden’s mode of discourse is a motivational one. He is a motivational speaker now. He provides a political narrative for people, a narrative of inspiration, but he issues no direct instructions.

The upshot of this?

[T]errorists scarcely need to recruit anymore because we have entered a phase of self-radicalisation, of DIY terrorism.

We are not dealing with organisational structures. We are most truly dealing with a persuasion around which otherwise disconnected people can coalesce accidentally into a movement. These are people that often have wildly divergent ideologies, and often disagree vehemently with one another. They are not some uniform factory product. This is not some singular evil ideology, despite the now familiar insistence of various pundits and politicians. It is a persuasion that has converged on an expression of political violence at a given point in time.

Again, yes and no. Some plotters, such as the Fort Dix guys, are clearly beginners - DIY types. But it's naive to think that, because we're seeing some of these guys, that's all there is.

Organization is critical to marshaling forces and increasing capabilities. Terrorist organizations understand this as well as anyone, even if, for security reasons, they seek to establish small, self-contained operational groups.

Identity politics is central to forging, and fighting, such a persuasion. It is crucial to grasp this because it leads us to think of counterterrorism in new ways. Presently, the governmental focus is disproportionately on the pointy end of the terrorism process: finding people who are about to kill us and locking them up. And it is precisely because the more formative stages of this process are beyond the conventional gaze that the scope of the threat grows consistently.

A person might begin with deep local grievances, but quickly learn to give them a global meaning. This is the nature of liquid modernity, where space collapses and it is possible to plug into the grievances of antipodean communities, even virtual communities, instantly. With globalised information flows, I can now appropriate the grievances of Muslims from Europe, Asia or the Middle East as my own, and I can therefore construct an artificially unified story. The brilliance of demagogues like bin Laden is in their ability to exploit this; to impart upon people the tools to knit together global narratives of persecution out of their domestic grievances; to convince disconnected audiences that the frustration, exclusion and alienation they feel domestically is not merely a domestic problem, but is precisely the same oppression visited upon their co-religionists in Iraq, Israel, Chechnya or Kashmir, part of the same grand design.

No disagreement here. This is the danger of the metastasization of the terrorist threat - that the old adage "all politics is local" becomes turned on its head. (Or perhaps, more accurately, the newer adage, "Think global; act local" is expressed in malevolent ways.)

The implications for government policy are relatively clear. No longer can we maintain the convenient political fiction that it is possible to quarantine policy decisions, whether foreign or domestic, from issues such as the terror threat. It is clear that whatever actions we take, in whatever sphere we take them, can and do have an increasingly global resonance.

The reverse is also true. On the local level, we ought to understand how events in faraway places can have significant local impacts. In the battle of hearts and minds, we can engage this argument only when we see both the near and the far - how we affect and are affected by events around the corner and around the globe.

Viral Transmission of Information on Explosives

Here's another post from Douglas Farah that's well worth the time. The threat from terrorists is quickly evolving, allowing them to rapidly learn how to use deadly technologies more effectively.

One of the most alarming things about the new transnationalism among terrorist groups is the rapid ability to transfer knowledge and technology, both through the the Internet and through individual training.

A possible point of relevance: In a post last week I wondered if it's reasonable to conclude that travel overseas is necessary before a jihadist can become an operational threat. Farah's piece lends credence to the idea that, from a technological perspective, overseas in-person training is becoming less necessary.

In this case, the more significant reason for overseas travel seems to be to take the last steps toward ultimate allegiance to the cause - a finding which the recent NYPD report on the radicalization process also indicated.

Farah again:

[W]hat is making the current situation different is that, instead of having to travel and hold clandestine meetings to trade information and methods, much of the information can now be transferred in the blink of an eye or the touch of a computer key.

Military sources say that the switching from low tech Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) to high tech back to low tech is mirrored almost in real time between insurgents in Iraq and those fighting in Afghanistan.

What's becoming clear is that the operational information that permits someone to learn the terrorist trade is becoming commoditized:

With decentralized networks, sort of like Napster in the music world or Skype in the computer/telecommunications world, once a technology is invented to solve a certain problem, it is put out there with no strings attached. People can take it, improve it, merge it, and it belongs to no one and everyone.

In reality we are fighting a viral network that can be disrupted, hurt, but which has a regenerative capacity that is only limited by the number of people wanting to wage jihad against us.

Farah's last point is instructive. Strategic success in the war against jihadists is determined by the number of people wanting to wage jihad, because it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep a lid on the operational knowledge required to commit a terrorist act.

The operational knowledge for committing terrorism is becoming a commodity.

However, developing the motivation for committing terrorism is still entirely reliant on social networks. It is this aspect of the terrorist threat (and here I'm extending terrorism beyond jihadist terrorism) that provides a real vulnerability for the terrorist and a real opportunity for those seeking to prevent terrorism.

Final thought: Are we sharing information as well as the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Fighting Leaderless Networks

Here's a nice post from Douglas Farah on the increasing phenomenon of decentralized, leaderless networks such as the "new" al Qaeda or revamped organized crime networks. Farah argues that a new strategy is required for fighting these networks. A few key paragraphs:

As a starfish can reconstitute itself out of almost any part that is severed, and has no real, centralized brain but a series of nerve impulses that guide its movements, so terrorist groups and criminal groups often thrive when deprived of centralized leadership.

This leads to deeply-troubling scenarios, because so much emphasis, both here and abroad, has focused on decapitating the leadership, rather than dealing with the network as a network.

Decapitation is often the key strategic objective, because our entire system is geared toward fighting organizations with a strict hierarchy, as our organizations are.

Successfully countering these groups and their growing reach will require a radical new assessment of both strategy and tactics in the military, intelligence community and law enforcement. But that will require a willingness to dump old assumptions and paradigms, something that has not really happened since 9-11.

Random thoughts:

1. Perhaps the network-vs-network element of the current anti-al Qaeda strategy in Iraq (i.e., cooperating with local tribes and former insurgent groups) is one reason for its effectiveness, as compared to former tactical approaches.

2. From a local homeland security perspective, what are the active local networks that could be used to counter the terrorist threat? What do we know about "our turf" that can be turned to strategic or tactical advantage?

3. What potential local networks do not exist yet?

4. What local networks could be made more effective?

The London-Glasgow Bombers: Homegrown?

Some characteristics of the June London-Glasgow bombers make them unusual, Jeffrey Cozzens reports in Terrorism Monitor:

First, there were no converts among the group, perhaps indicating a more global element to this plot:

Unlike many previous jihadi plots and attacks in the United Kingdom (including the "Operation Crevice" cell, the 7/7 attackers and the autumn 2006 "planes" plot), there is no data thus far to indicate the involvement of Muslim converts. Converts to radical Islam have figured prominently in European-based jihadism (arguably because of their accelerated embrace of Salafi-Jihadi activism in their quest for "authentic Islam"), and the absence of such in this plot could indicate a more international cast of organizers.

(For more on the vulnerability of converts to the radicalization process, see these previous posts.)

Along with the fact that the plotters were from atypical countries (most notably India), this plot takes on a particular "international" flavor:

While still too early to draw firm conclusions about the plot and its alleged participants, there is one strategic angle elicited by these events that merits consideration: the tension between the global and homegrown nature of the plot, a point of recent media speculation and contradicting views among the quoted "intelligence sources" (Daily Mail, July 4). The history of jihad in the United Kingdom demonstrates that, with few exceptions, this is a faulty dichotomy. Both global and homegrown forces motivated and shaped most, if not all, jihadi plots in the United Kingdom and the West. This theory will likely be validated in the case of the June 2007 plots as well.

Cozzens argues that it may be time to do away with the concept of "homegrown terrorism" - as jihadist terrorism is a global phenomenon, and jihadist terror groups share little other than ideology:

The nature of global jihadi ideology itself, however, with its focus on pan-Islamic suffering and unity, defense of Muslim lands and the establishment of Sharia zones in the place of current Middle Eastern, African and Asian regimes, inherently exhibits transnational qualities and aspirations—even if those who subscribe to it never travel outside London or Los Angeles to meet with al-Qaeda operatives or receive overt directions from international terrorist networks. Homegrown jihadi plots, in this respect, are misnomers.

In sum, separating the homegrown from the global nature of this plot will likely prove exceedingly difficult, as will determining whether the bottom-up impetus of the suspects' British experiences—or conversely, their association with al-Qaeda-linked figures—motivated their suspected activities. This calls for a new mode of thinking about Western jihadi networks and a re-exploration of the strategic doctrine behind this militant organizational form—one in which the structural links to al-Qaeda are ambiguous, but ideologically connectivity a certainty.

Most terrorism has historically been a reaction to local events - commonly, resistance to oppression or occupation. The idea that upwardly mobile professionals in Britain, with a bright future to look forward to, would commit terrorism in response to grievances on behalf of others around the world is a challenge to the process of preventing radicalization.

On the local level, it suggests to me that intelligence is critical. Radicalization must proceed along social tracks, which can be identified and guarded. And once radicalized, jihadists (especially those in self-contained cells whose primary connectivity to others is ideological) must learn the tradecraft of violence - presenting another opportunity for intervention. Fortunately, the Internet has so far been an inefficient tool for learning the terror trade, so some real-world training is useful and/or necessary (see this earlier post).

It is these points along the path of radicalization and "going operational" that present opportunities for local homeland security.

Disrupting Terrorist Recruitment

The U.S. State Department recently published an e-journal titled Countering the Terrorist Mentality.

A couple of the articles in there dealt with one of my particular interests, countering terrorist recruiting. Some highlights follow.

First, in its article entitled "A Strategic Assessment of Progress Against the Terrorist Threat," the State Department's Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism pointed out, as others have before, that al Qaeda's current focus is on using propaganda to develop a worldwide "franchise" organization:

Overall, however, al-Qaida's current approach focuses on propaganda warfare—using a combination of terrorist attacks, insurgency, media broadcasts, Internet-based propaganda, and subversion to undermine confidence and unity in Western populations and generate the false perception of a powerful worldwide movement.

[In 2006] Radicalization of immigrant populations, youth, and alienated minorities in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa continued. It became increasingly clear, however, that such radicalization does not occur by accident, or because such populations are innately prone to extremism. Rather, there was increasing evidence of terrorists and extremists manipulating the grievances of alienated youth or immigrant populations and then cynically exploiting those grievances to subvert legitimate authority and create unrest.

The process of indoctrination is slow and gradual:

Terrorists seek to manipulate grievances in order to radicalize others by pulling them further and further into illegal activities. This is best represented as a "conveyor belt" through which terrorists seek to convert alienated or aggrieved populations, convert them to extremist viewpoints, and turn them, by stages, into sympathizers, supporters, and, ultimately, members of terrorist networks. ...

Countering such efforts demands that we treat immigrant and youth populations not as a source of threat to be defended against, but as a target of enemy subversion to be protected and supported. It also requires community leaders to take responsibility for the actions of members within their communities and act to counteract extremist subversion.

As I've argued before, terrorist organizations and sympathizers are highly vulnerable when they recruit. They must expose their violent desires, and they must work carefully to ensure that their audience is receptive, without being detected by anyone who might compromise their security.

To counter these recruitment and radicalization activities, the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism argues that:

[W]e must seek to build trusted networks of governments, private citizens and organizations, multilateral institutions, and business organizations that work collaboratively to defeat the threat from violent extremism.

Such networks, over time, help wean at-risk populations away from subversive manipulation by terrorists and create mechanisms to address people's needs and grievances, thus marginalizing terrorists.

Youth organizations, educational networks, business partnerships, women's empowerment, and local development initiatives can all play a role, with government as a supportive partner.

Note that these types of networks are best suited to the local level, as are two of the three strategic components to the terrorist threat:

To make such active measures effective, the three strategic components of the terrorist threat that must be neutralized are leaders, safe havens, and underlying conditions.

Leaders provide a motivating, mobilizing, and organizing function and act as symbolic figureheads.

Safe havens, which are often in ungoverned or undergoverned spaces, provide a secure environment for training, planning, financial, and operational support, and a base for mounting attacks. They may be physical or virtual in nature.

In addition, underlying conditions provide the fuel, in the form of grievances and conflicts that power the processes of radicalization.

Safe havens, assuming they are not virtual, will always be best detected on the local level. Underlying conditions are also best detected and countered at the local level.

Finally, the article argues that collaborative counterterrorist efforts should include the entire community:

Because the enemy is a nonstate actor who thrives among disaffected populations, private-sector efforts are at least as important as government activity. Citizen diplomacy, cultural activity, person-to-person contact, economic cooperation and development, and the application of media and academic resources are key components of our response to the threat. Motivating, mobilizing, and supporting such privately led activities are key leadership tasks in the new environment.

Another article that focuses on terrorist recruitment is "From Profiles to Pathways: The Road to Recruitment" by John Horgan, PhD, senior research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence.

Horgan focuses on the individuals who perpetrate and support terrorist acts.

Although terrorism can bring about significant and large-scale consequences, it remains, in essence, low-level, low-volume, and disproportionate activity perpetrated by individuals.

He is clear to point out, as others have before, that profiling is not useful when trying to identify terrorists:

Psychologist and terrorism expert Ariel Merari has correctly argued that it is more precise to state that "no terrorist profile has been found" rather than that "there is no terrorist profile."

I would strongly argue that there are several real dangers associated with the continued effort to construct such profiles, particularly as far as understanding recruitment to terrorism is concerned.

I'd be inclined to say it a bit differently: There's no useful terrorist profile. People who join terrorist organizations, especially young people, are generally interested in finding a cause that gives meaning to their lives, joining a supportive social group, and establishing an identity for themselves. This is certainly a "profile," though not a useful one, as it generally describes almost every young person in the world.

Horgan argues that in developing counterterrorist strategies, it's not the psychological profile of the terrorist that's important, but the process by which that terrorist is radicalized:

In assuming the existence of a profile, we tend to miss several critical features associated with the development of the terrorist. These include, but are not limited to:

• The gradual nature of the relevant socialization processes into terrorism
• A sense of the supportive qualities associated with that reruitment (e.g., the "pull" factors, or lures, that attract people to either involvement in terrorism in a broad sense, or those positive lures that are used to groom potential recruits)
• The sense of migration between roles (e.g., moving from fringe activity such as public protest to illegal, focused behavior—in other words, moving from one role to another)
• A sense of the importance of role qualities (e.g., what attractions does being a sniper hold as opposed to becoming a suicide bomber, and how do these "role qualities" become apparent to the onlooker or potential recruit?)

When we assume static qualities of the terrorist (a feature of profiles), we become blind to the factors and dynamics that shape and support the development of the terrorist. One further consequence is that we also obscure the basis from which a more practical counterterrorism strategy might develop to prevent or control the extent of those who initially become involved in terrorism.

Using the process of "creating" a terrorist as his guide, Horgan identifies risk factors that shape the development of a terrorist:

I have identified a series of what I have termed predisposing risk factors for involvement in terrorism. In no particular order, these include:

• Personal experiences of victimization (which can be real or imagined)
• Expectations about involvement (e.g., the lures—such as excitement, mission, sense of purpose—associated with being involved in any "insider" group and its various roles)
• Identification with a cause, frequently associated with some victimized community
• Socialization through friends or family, or being raised in a particular environment
• Opportunity for expression of interest and steps toward involvement
• Access to the relevant group

So, instead of looking for formulations such as, "terrorists tend to come from low- to middle-class families, have an interest in politics, etc. etc" we would be better off focusing on what it means to be and become a "terrorist":

In order to move beyond rather sterile and unhelpful debates about profiling, it might be useful to consider what involvement in terrorism implies ...

While many of the activities that terrorist movements engage in are not actually illegal per se (and cannot be meaningfully encompassed under the label "terrorism," but perhaps instead "subversion"), without them actual terrorist operations could not exist.

For the most part, engagement in violent activity is that which we most commonly associate with terrorism. However, the reality of terrorist movements today is that this most public of roles and functions tends to merely represent the tip of an iceberg of activity. Supporting the execution of a violent attack are those directly aiding and abetting the event, those who house the terrorist or provide other kinds of support, those who raise funds, generate publicity, provide intelligence, and so forth.

The person we think of as "the terrorist" is therefore fulfilling only one, albeit the most dramatic in terms of direct consequences, of multiple functions in the movement.

Along the process of radicalization, an individual can fill any of these roles and functions:

Overall, we can say that involvement in terrorism is a complex process, comprising discrete phases that could be encapsulated as an individual terrorist engages in a gradual process of accommodation and assimilation across incrementally experienced stages. There is a sense of ongoing movement into, through, and, sometimes, out of different roles and functions.

In short, a terrorist is not what someone is, but rather what someone becomes.

And as long as commitment and dedication to one's socialization further and further into the movement remains positive for the follower, this eventually results in the formation of a new—or at least effectively consolidated—identity.

If we want to appreciate what, if anything, is the "terrorist mind," it is probably best thought of as the product of:

• Increased socialization into a terrorist movement and its associated engagement in illegal activity
• Focused behavior, more generally, that is increasingly relevant to the context of a terrorist movement

From a personal and social perspective, this often means that a socialization into terrorism, and those associated with it, sees a socialization away from nonrelevant friends, family, and the person's former life.

The key, then, is to interrupt this process.

One of several consequences that would seem to emerge from making distinctions between these phases is that we might begin to develop phase-specific counterterrorism initiatives, depending on what it is we can ascertain is the most effective intervention point; that is, whether it be initial prevention of involvement, subsequent disruption of engagement, or eventual facilitation of disengagement.

I found Horgan's analysis to be similar to this one by RAND analysts Scott Gerwehr and Sara Daly. (My post here.)

Cross-posted in IPS Blogs at the Institute for Preventive Strategies.

Terrorists?

One to ponder:

Their guilt isn't in question. The six men and four women already admitted being involved in a series of arson fires that did $40 million in damage to research facilities, a ski resort and other businesses in the West. But are they terrorists as the government says?

A federal judge was set to hear arguments Tuesday on a motion by the government to add a so-called terrorism enhancement to their sentences.

To some extent, the definition of whether this is terrorism is a bit of a distraction from the more important point that the threat is significant:

Prosecutors want Judge Ann Aiken to declare the group terrorists — something defense attorneys argue has never happened in 1,200 arsons nationwide claimed by Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front.

The fires targeted forest ranger stations, meat packing plants, wild horse corrals, lumber mill offices, research facilities, an SUV dealer and, in 1998, Vail Ski Resort. No one was injured, the defense notes in legal motions.

That no one was injured is also something of a red herring. As any firefighter will tell you, arson is a serious crime. Firefighters get hurt and killed in arson fires every year.

In terms of the threat, it's noteworthy that the group was coordinated:

The case, known as Operation Backfire, is the biggest prosecution ever of environmental extremists, and has turned on its head the prevailing idea that arsonists have generally acted alone, said Brent Smith, director of the Terrorism Research Center at the University of Arkansas.

"We thought these people operated for the last 15 years under this kind of uncoordinated violence approach, just like the extreme right was doing — leaderless resistance," Smith said. "That's why this case is so very different."

Prosecution filings argue that though the defendants were never convicted of terrorism, they qualify for the label because at least one of the fires each of them set was intended to change or retaliate against government policy.

I guess I'm agnostic on what label is applied to them. Their sentences aren't likely to change if they get the "terrorism" add-on. More important is the recognition that it's not just jihadists who are willing to use coordinated violence to promote an agenda.

Update 05-24-2007: They got the terrorist label.

Cross-posted in IPS Blogs at the Institute for Preventive Strategies.

Vulnerabilities of the Fort Dix Plotters

According to the AP report, via CBS News, the six would-be jihadists who were arrested for plotting to attack Fort Dix were essentially a homegrown plot. These guys were apparently not tied to al Qaeda:

White House spokesman Tony Snow said Tuesday there is "no direct evidence" that the men had ties to international terrorism.

This demonstrates the evolving threat of al Qaeda. While the core organization is still dangerous, it is also becoming a "franchise" operation, in which small cells can go operational on their own, only taking inspiration from the parent organization and developing capabilities independently.

The good news about this is, self-taught terrorists are apt to show less operational discipline and make more mistakes than those who have been more professionally trained. From the early reporting, I can see five vulnerabilities of this group - some of which were exploited, some of which weren't. First, there are immigration violations:

Four of the men were born in the former Yugoslavia, one in Jordan and one in Turkey, officials said. All had lived in the United States for years. Three were in the country illegally; two had green cards allowing them to stay permanently; the other is a U.S. citizen.

But their immigration status didn't trip them up; their other vulnerabilities did. Their worst mistake was to show their jihadist tendencies outside their inner circle:

The FBI was tipped off in January 2006 when a shopkeeper alerted agents about a "disturbing" video he had been asked to copy onto a DVD, according to court documents. The video showed 10 men in their early 20s "shooting assault weapons at a firing range ... while calling for jihad and shouting in Arabic 'Allah Akbar' (God is great)," the complaint said.

Not good operational security, that.

Note that the "shopkeeper" episode demonstrates the value of maintaining good relationships between law enforcement and the public, especially with Arab-American and Muslim populations. (See this post for background on that.)

The group's third vulnerability was to try to expand its ranks.

By March 2006, the group had been infiltrated by an informant who developed a relationship with Shnewer, according to court documents.

In conversations secretly recorded by an FBI informant over the past year, the men talked about killing in the name of Allah and attacking U.S. warships that might dock in Philadelphia, according an FBI criminal complaint.

The group allowed this vulnerability to be exploited not once, but twice. In a timeline of the group's activities from January 2006 to May 2007, the New Jersey Star-Ledger revealed that there were two cooperating witnesses:

July 7, 2006: A second cooperating witness is approached by six men, one of whom identifies himself as "Sulayman," a name used by Eljvir Duka.

Note that this witness didn't go to them; they approached him.

This exposes a truism of terrorist recruiting. Terrorists are vulnerable when they try to expand their ranks. During recruiting, they have to poke their heads above ground and communicate their violent desires, and that's a significant risk to them.

Their fourth area of vulnerability was their attempt to acquire the high-powered weaponry they needed to attack Fort Dix. They were after M-16s and AK-47s. Again from the Star-Ledger:

May 7, 2007: Federal investigators arrest the three Dukas, Shnewer, Tatar and Abdullahu, after several of them are lured to a meeting with a secret FBI informant posing as an arms-seller.

A final potential vulnerability, which went unexploited, was the necessity of finding a place to do their training. Like others before them, they chose a remote area. The Allentown (PA) Morning Call provided specifics on the group's training in the Poconos:

Six men who allegedly plotted to attack Fort Dix trained with automatic weapons on state game lands in the Poconos and rented a house in that area, according to the criminal complaint filed by the U.S. attorney's office in Camden.

The six men first visited the firing range at State Game Land 127 near Gouldsboro in January 2006, according to the complaint. The men, who had been under surveillance by the FBI for more than a year, returned to the Poconos in February 2007 and rented a house in a gated community called Big Bass Lake near Gouldsboro where they watched videos of U.S. military vehicles being destroyed in various attacks.

The men again visited the firing range, where they practiced with numerous weapons, including handguns and automatic rifles. According to the complaint, each man fired over 400 rounds each.

Their preparations were pretty typical; acquiring weapons, practicing in the woods. What this means for local law enforcement is that if you are in a remote or rural area, there's a chance that terrorists may come to you, even if you consider your community low on the target list.

But the group's vulnerability during training wasn't exploited. It's possible that they didn't do anything to raise suspicions while in the Poconos.

One thing that comes through clearly is the group's determination. They would not be deterred by the risk of jail time, or even death:

"It doesn't matter to me whether I get locked up, arrested or get taken away," a suspect identified as Serdar Tatar said in another recorded conversation. "Or I die, it doesn't matter. I'm doing it in the name of Allah."

It's possible that there's an element of braggadocio here, but not likely. Other homegrown groups, such as the London subway bombers and the recent group in Morocco, have shown the capacity to conduct suicide operations or fight to the finish rather than give up.

The only way to deter these guys would have been to convince them that their chances of success were so small that they wouldn't make the effort. Even then, they would have moved on to another target. They conducted reconnaissance on a number of sites:

The men also allegedly conducted surveillance at other area military institutions, including Fort Monmouth, a U.S. Army installation, the official said.

An important bit of information from the story is that they had access to the target:

[U.S. Attorney Christopher] Christie said one of the suspects worked at Super Mario's Pizza in nearby Cookstown and delivered pizzas to the base.

It is easy to imagine these guys piling into the pizza-deliverer's car, perhaps in the trunk, when he made a delivery to the base, and then coming out firing when he reached a populated area of the base.

In other words , it may be unlikely that the base's gates and other rings of protection would have prevented the immediate attack. They certainly would have been dispatched pretty quickly once the firing started, but they could have done some damage before that happened.

To summarize:

This group had a number of vulnerabilities, but a lack of mission doesn't appear to be one of them. Deterrence was unrealistic. They had done their homework well enough to develop a scheme that may have gotten them past Fort Dix's protective system of gates and guards.

It was up to law enforcement to detect their activities and preempt the attack before it occurred. Some of their vulnerabilities were unexploited. So the tip-offs and informants were critical, as we have seen in prior cases.

Update 2007-05-09: The U.S. Attorney and FBI are giving a lot of credit to the anonymous store clerk who made the original tip:

"If we didn't get that tip," said U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie, "I couldn't be sure what would happen." FBI agent J.P. Weis called the clerk the "unsung hero" of the case.

Trust is the basis for information-sharing. It's essential to maintain public trust, so that people feel confident in coming forward with information. It's especially important in the case of these groups that can pop up spontaneously. They're harder to spot, because they make fewer connections. The people who are most likely to notice this type of behavior are the people in the community close to them:

Weis said the U.S. is seeing a "brand-new form of terrorism," involving smaller, more loosely defined groups that may not be connected to al-Qaida but are inspired by its ideology.

"These homegrown terrorists can prove to be as dangerous as any known group, if not more so. They operate under the radar," Weis said.

"We believe they are their own cell," said Christie. "They are inspired by international terror organizations. I believe they saw themselves as part of that."

Update #2 2007-05-09: A few more details from the Chicago Tribune.

The Tribune quotes Daniel Benjamin, who points out the plotters' lack of operational security. As I mentioned earlier in this post, he's absolutely right that, compared to the disciplined 9/11 plotters, these guys were all too careless about maintaining operational security:

Daniel Benjamin, a terrorism expert and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington ... said he knew too little about the New Jersey case to draw a conclusion about the seriousness of the threat. But the fact that the men took a video of themselves firing assault weapons to a store for copying onto DVDs, he said, "somewhat indicates they weren't the A-team of terrorists."

The Tribune story reveals that group was apparently deterred from attacking Dover Air Force Base by what they perceived to be stronger security, choosing what they perceived to be a softer target in Fort Dix:

The plotters also targeted Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, but determined it was too well-guarded to attack, the FBI said.

This is another data point demonstrating that protection of one target generally means that a determined adversary will find a softer target. (And by extension, that simply protecting targets is an insufficient strategy for preventing terrorism.)

For its part, Fort Dix defended its security operations:

A successful attack on Ft. Dix is considered to be highly unlikely. Armed soldiers guard every gate, whose approaches have curbs or barriers that force traffic to slowly snake as they get near.

The soldiers perform "a 100 percent identification check" and conduct random vehicle searches, Carolee Nisbet, a public information officer at Ft. Dix, said.

I haven't been to Fort Dix, so I will assume that security there is strong. But defending the guard system at the gate misses a larger point: The system must stop guys like this before they ever reach the gate. The time to stop a terrorist attack is early, not when the car is loaded with shooters and automatic rifles.

The system worked this time, but it's discomforting to think that if not for the Circuit City clerk who called in the tip, the vulnerabilities of the group might have gone unexploited.

Update 2007-05-10: More on Fort Dix security from AP:

The fort considers its policy for screening delivery people adequate for now, but said it could be reviewed in the future, base spokeswoman Carolee Nesbit said.

Before they are cleared to make deliveries at Fort Dix, drivers must register in advance, undergo a criminal background check, and obtain an access pass that has to be reviewed every 30 days.

Drivers who arrive at the military installation's gate are greeted by armed guards, who check their identification and issue a pass. The delivery people are not followed or monitored once they clear security, Nesbit said.

"There are 16,000 people that come through the gates every day," she said. "It's practically impossible to follow everyone."

Guards are a necessary but insufficient form of protection. They will not stop a genuine threat unless: A) It is imminent (i.e., the shooters are in the car) or B) The potential threat is identified at an earlier phase of development.

All of which demonstrates the value of targeting terrorism's precursor crimes (e.g., immigration violations, firearms possession, financial scams, etc.) - the "Capone Strategy" I wrote about last week.

Cross-posted in IPS Blogs at the Institute for Preventive Strategies.

Local First Preventers

To extend the thoughts in the previous post on preventing jihadist recruiting, it's easy to say that we should intervene to stop radicalization and recruitment into terrorist causes and organizations. But how to do it?

An excellent summary of how to enact local prevention efforts was published a few months ago by George Kelling and William Bratton, in their article "Policing Terrorism" in the Manhattan Institute's Civic Bulletin. Kelling is a professor of criminal justice at Rutgers, and Bratton is the Los Angeles Chief of Police. Understandably, their focus is on law enforcement - though there is certainly cause for others to collaborate and share information to recognize threats.

Kelling and Bratton argue that local efforts are critical - but underutilized:

Our shared knowledge of both the theory and practice of policing has convinced us that local law enforcement is a vital yet underutilized resource in the war on terror.

Because the homeland-security debate has, so far, focused on federal capacities, our national counterterrorist strategy has failed to incorporate hundreds of thousands of capable cops. Local law enforcement officers are primarily viewed as "first responders" to incidents rather than as potential "first preventers" of terrorism. As a result, the United States remains far more vulnerable than it should be.

Above all, we must expand our national strategy to give a larger role to local police. Local police departments in the U.S. have not traditionally seen themselves as part of the national security apparatus. This needs to change. Homeland security is less dependent on appointing a national intelligence czar than it is on empowering local police. Massachusetts state police chief Ed Flynn calls this "hometown security."

(Hey, so do I!)

Kelling and Bratton offer three strategies for engaging local police in the prevention of terrorism:

Local police can be leveraged in this war in three key ways.

First, we can train police in the problem-solving techniques that will make them effective first preventers of terrorism.

Second, we can use computer statistics (Compstat) and technology to enhance data sharing and to catalyze intelligence-led counterterrorist policing.

Finally, and most vitally, the theory of order maintenance commonly called "broken windows," which police in New York City have used so successfully in the war on crime, can be adapted for the war on terror.

Being local - in and of itself - is critical. Local "first preventers" have an advantage in both numbers and familiarity with their environment:

The counterterrorist potential of local police is partly a function of numbers. More than 700,000 local law enforcement officers work in the continental U.S, compared with just 12,000 FBI agents. Based on numbers alone, local law enforcement personnel are much more likely than feds to cross paths with terrorists.

It is the local police, too, who are most often obliged to probe citizen tips. A major terrorist attack in London was disrupted last year in just that way. When a grandmother smelled something strange wafting from an adjacent flat, she notified police. She told them she'd noticed a group of young men frequenting the flat, which, she said, contained no furniture. Inside, police discovered a makeshift ricin gas factory. The "young men" actually constituted a terror cell preparing a poison-gas attack, which could have killed thousands.

The presence of police in our communities sensitizes them to anomalies and yields counterterrorist data valuable to other agencies.

Only an effective local police establishment that has the confidence of citizens," former CIA director James Woolsey testified to Congress in 2004, "is going to be likely to hear from, say, a local merchant in a part of town containing a number of new immigrants that a group of young men from abroad have recently moved into a nearby apartment and are acting suspiciously."

(Also see this post.)

Suspicious "local young men" may be engaged in radicalization, recruitment, or any other type of terrorist activity. But to find this type, you have to look for it:

But to fully realize the potential of local police in counterterrorism, we first need a philosophical shift, as occurred in criminal policing during the 1990s. Instead of merely reacting to individual "incidents," police must proactively solve general problems.

[LAPD counterterrorism] training is already paying off. In the Torrance case, the officers who executed the search had been trained by the Los Angeles area's joint counterterrorism program to look for possible links to terrorism, and they quickly found them. The NYPD's proactive Operation Nexus uncovered an al-Qaeda plan to smuggle weapons into the city through a garment-district shipping business. Counterterrorist training led police in Rhode Island to net jihadists in a routine traffic stop.

At the very least, officers who are taught to identify the support structures of potential terrorists are more able to create an environment in which terrorists will not feel comfortable.

As I've noted a number of times before, one of the key terrorist vulnerabilities is the nexus between terrorism and more "common" criminal activity:

Application of broken-windows theory in counterterrorist policing has two components: the first is creating a hostile environment for terrorists; the second is recognizing that terrorism's equivalents to subway fare beating are illegal border crossings, forged documents, and other relatively minor precursor crimes that terrorists often commit to fund the operations to prepare their attacks.

Criminals commit many crimes; as it turns out, so do terrorists. While it is possible that all the activities leading up to a terrorist act could be conducted perfectly legally, the combination of specific activities (e.g., large number of males using a rented apartment irregularly) can present, if not a recognizable pattern, at least an anomalous or a suspicious one. In the recent London bombings, for example, large amounts of hydrogen peroxide were purchased for the purpose of bomb making. Similarly, a terrorist may get tripped up by a law enforcement or private security encounter that has nothing to do with his terrorist activities or intent...

Many terrorists, especially foreigners who are in the U.S. illegally, have to live a fugitive lifestyle—that is, they have to commit crimes not just to carry out an attack but simply to sustain themselves. They maintain themselves with illegal documents, committing burglary and robbery, dealing drugs, committing fraud, and so on.

While terrorist criminal activity remains a significant vulnerability, there is much that local "first preventers" can do to make targets more difficult to exploit. This presents opportunities for working with other public agencies, as well as the private sector. Sharing information is critical:

LAPD's Operation Archangel ... works proactively with private and public partners to assess the vulnerabilities of critical infrastructure. Owners and operators of commercial buildings are asked to contribute detailed, up-to-date infrastructure information to Archangel—floor plans, HVAC systems, entrances and exits, and so on. This information is then entered into a database management system that assesses threats and devises deterrence and prevention strategies, as well as emergency response plans.

In March, the Governor's Guide to Homeland Security also emphasized the importance of collaborating with both public- and private-sector entities on prevention, preparedness, and response. (Also see my post.)

Citizens at all levels - like the grandmother in the London apartment - can be involved. It can be especially useful to establish partnerships with those who live and work close to potential targets or avenues for attack:

We've worked with Los Angeles business owners who sell products or services that could possibly be used by terrorists—truck-rental facilities, for example—to make sure that they are aware of the threat. We've also reached out to doormen, private security guards, and transit workers.

This type of information-sharing is not common, but there are some positive developments:

Although the need to share data is not new, exchanging information across jurisdictions and levels of government is more critical in the current threat environment than it ever was in the war on crime.

Since 9/11, information sharing between the federal government and state and locals has improved. Most of the improvement has come through the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) ...

Despite this progress, the level of cooperation seems to vary greatly, depending on the personalities of individual bureau and police chiefs.

Instead of relying solely on the federal government for intelligence, many state and local departments have now taken it upon themselves to create their own systems. Among other things, they are assembling databases, sharing information, and setting up their own DNA labs. The NYPD's intelligence operation is widely regarded as the gold standard.

But it's not enough to share information within a single network. Information must be shared across networks if it is to be most useful:

Once law enforcement has the information, it needs to make sense of it and share it immediately. It is critical that—both horizontally and vertically—law enforcement overcomes its traditional reluctance to share information in a meaningful and timely fashion.

[W]e must not forget that information must flow both ways. It is just as important that local police are sharing information with the feds—a point that is often overlooked by those involved in the FBI's JTTF.

Information is the best weapon we have against terrorism, but it must be made available to those who can best use it. In many cases, they will be local law enforcement.

Despite all the progress, there is a long way to go:

The unfortunate reality is that law enforcement—federal, state, and local—is very far behind the private sector in terms of the ability to use technology to gather, analyze, and disseminate information.

The federal government simply has to do a better job of collecting, analyzing, and sharing intelligence. The government's failure at "connecting the dots," as the 9/11 commission put it, was key to al-Qaeda's fateful hijackings in 2001. Five years later, it is not clear that much has changed.

Kelling and Bratton summarize:

Counterterrorism has to be woven into the everyday workings of every department. It should be included on the agenda of every meeting, and this new role must be imparted to officers on the street so that terrorism prevention becomes part of their everyday thinking.

We need to train local police to be aware of terrorist indicators and precursor crimes so that they can be effective "first preventers." We need to overcome the petty rivalries and technological barriers that are hampering the collection and sharing of important intelligence.

America's genius has been and always will be its empowerment of local institutions. ... Empowering local police to act as the front line for homeland security is how we can win the war on terror.

Another expert who has recently chimed in on possible ways that local "first preventers" can exploit terrorist activity is Raymond Foster, a retired Police Chief of Los Angeles. Writing for PoliceOne.com, Foster's article "Terrorism Organizational and Communication Strategies" focuses on how local police can exploit terrorist groups based on their organizational structures and communication techniques. First, he argues in favor of better information sharing:

Intelligence gathering is the first line of defense against terrorism. Through use of intelligence, law enforcement and military operations can be designed to disrupt terrorist organizations and preempt their operations.

Moreover, while our focus is on international terrorist organizations, there are many domestic groups that use similar methods of organizing and communicating. Understanding some of their organization and communication methods may help you see evidence, information and intelligence you might have overlooked otherwise.

The first type of terrorist organization is the "single-cell":

In the realm of terrorism, the single-cell organism is referred to as the "Lone Wolf terrorist" or "leaderless resistance." This can be a critical concept in understanding the development of terrorist organizations. The Lone Wolf terrorist does not receive direct instructions from a central organization. Rather, he or she receives inspiration from an idea or perhaps a remote subversive political figure.

Single-cell or disconnected cellular groups have the benefit of maximum operational security because communication is limited or non-existent. There are few, if any, opportunities for an intelligence service to intercept communications or penetrate the group. On the other hand, single-cell or disconnected cellular groups also are limited in their ability to carry out operations.

These can be difficult to disrupt, but there are some means of doing so. (Note how this fits nicely with Kelling and Bratton's call to develop relationships with local businesses who provide goods and services that may be of interest, and to exploit the terrorist vulnerability of "common crime"):

In the instance of Lone Wolves, state and local law enforcement officials should be aware of the purchase of certain materials, monitor suspicious actions of individuals and devise ways to share seemingly low-level suspicious activities with other jurisdictions.

A "multi-cellular" organization is larger, so it tends to work hard to maintain operational secrecy:

With terrorist organizations, the purpose of a true cellular organization is to increase the operational security of the larger group and to capitalize on specialization. It is a mistake to believe that one member of the cell necessarily leads to other cells. Rather, operational security is enhanced because most of the members of the cell do not know anyone in the organization outside of the cell.

This has an effect on its communication strategies:

As a terrorist organization becomes more specialized and cellular, its communications scheme becomes more complex.

Terrorists have tried to mask or disguise their use of e-mail by having relatively anonymous [e-mail] accounts provided free by various services. But, any message you send over the e-mail account is susceptible to interception.

While terrorists are using technology to communicate, it is likely that they mostly are relying on time-tested spy "tradecraft" like dead drops. A dead drop is a pre-determined location where messages or materials are left so that cell members do not have to meet face to face. Or, in areas where there is significant social support for their movements, face-to-face meetings.

Whatever their means of communication, as the complexity of their cellular structure grows, so does the complexity of their communication schemes and the likelihood of interception.

In terms of preventing terrorist recruiting, communication strategies and techniques are very important. An Internet-based scheme is likely to motivate Lone Wolf terrorists, who are harder to detect but less capable of doing significant damage.

But for a terrorist organization to develop a more powerful cell, more personal recruitment is required. As these two posts indicate, this is a significant vulnerability for terrorists, because they, like first preventers, need to develop deep, trusting relationships. They cannot do this without exposing themselves and their communications.

The Risk Right Here

There was some interesting testimony at last week's hearing of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Generally, there was a lot of old info, but some new info as well.

Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte discussed the likeliest threat:

Use of a conventional explosive continues to be the most probable al-Qa'ida attack scenario. … Nevertheless, we receive reports indicating that al-Qa'ida and other groups are attempting to acquire chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons or materials.

Lieutenant General Michael Maples, who's the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, provided more insight into probable WMD threats, as well as some of the more likely avenues of terrorist recruiting:

CBRN-related information is widely available, and if terrorists were to use unconventional materials in an attack, we believe they likely would use low-level biochemical agents such as ricin, botulinum toxin or toxic industrial chemicals such as cyanide. … We also judge that al Qaida and other terrorist groups have the capability and intent to develop and employ a radiological dispersal device.

Extremism throughout the West will continue to be spread primarily through radical clerics, the Internet, and in prisons.

Charlie Allen, the Chief Intelligence Officer at DHS, chimed in with some information on potential U.S. targets and additional info on terrorist recruiting:

We determine that transportation (particularly commercial aviation and mass transit) and commercial facilities remain the sectors most threatened by al-Qa'ida and its affiliates.

Our research indicates a variety of radicalizing influences, to include the role of charismatic extremist leaders, the spread of extremist propaganda through the Internet, the use of mass communication and multimedia, and more traditional person-to-person encounters, are among the key drivers that shape radicalization dynamics within the Homeland.

I thought the most interesting testimony was given by Phillip Mudd, who was appearing on behalf of Willie T. Hulon, the Executive Assistant Director of the FBI's National Security Branch (NSB). Mudd talked about the connections between terrorists and more ordinary criminal activities, the risk of homegrown terrorism, and the threat posed by Hezbollah:

Last year, we disrupted a homegrown Sunni Islamic extremist group in California known as the JIS, a.k.a. 'Assembly of Authentic Islam,' operating primarily in state prisons, without apparent connections or direction from outside the United States and no identifiable foreign nexus. Members of the JIS committed armed robberies in Los Angeles with the goal of financing terrorist attacks …

The radicalization of US Muslim converts is of particular concern. … converts appear to be more vulnerable and likely to be placed in situations that put them in a position to be influenced by Islamic extremists.

The Internet has facilitated the radicalization process, particularly in the United States, by providing access to a broad and constant stream of extremist Islamic propaganda, as well as experienced and possibly well connected operators via web forums and chat rooms.

US Hizballah associates and sympathizers primarily engage in a wide range of fundraising avenues in order to provide support to Hizballah to include criminal activities such as money laundering, credit card, immigration, food stamp, and bank fraud, as well as narcotics trafficking.

The UPI also reported on the hearing, adding some additional perspective from the participants on the use of the Internet to spread extremist ideologies. Mudd said:

The commonality we have (with Europe) is people who are using the Internet or talking among friends who are part of what I would characterize as a Pepsi jihad ... It's become popular among youth, and we have this phenomenon in the United States.

So that you have a kid in Georgia, a kid in California, a kid in Kansas, he may see the same images from Iraq, from Palestine, from Afghanistan, from Pakistan, that someone in Indonesia or Saudi Arabia sees, and he may be infected the same way with an ideology that says the use of violence against innocents is okay.

But, the UPI reported, others point out that there is a generally small risk of a group of young people becoming radicalized over the Internet and then launching a catastrophic attack, without any further connections or training:

"It's ridiculous to think that the U.S. or any other military would do its training over the Internet," said analyst and author Peter Bergen, arguing al-Qaida was just as professional in its approach. "Radicalization is one thing, having operational cells with the capacity to launch attacks is something else entirely.

"That basically means people who have been through one of the (terrorist training) camps."

Bergen said that the homegrown plots uncovered in the United States so far appeared to lack that thread back to al-Qaida central, which was one reason why he said they had been "pretty pathetic ... not much of a threat."

An al Qaeda Training Doctrine

Terrorism Monitor has an interesting article on the evolution al Qaeda's training doctrines. Focusing on one particularly influential jihadi strategist, Abu Mus'ab al-Suri, the report describes how his strategic thinking is affecting the shape of the al Qaeda organization today.

Anyone interested in homeland security should be aware of how terrorists are organizing their operations. In a nutshell, the article argues that al Qaeda is abandoning hierarchical organizational structures and is promoting the idea of small-cells-everywhere. The same concept has also been noted by others. Call this another data point that helps clarify the picture:

[T]he practice of "individual terrorism" is a core theme in al-Suri's most recent writings, and it is rooted in his most famous slogan: nizam, la tanzim (System, not Organization). In other words, there should be "an operative system" or template available anywhere for anybody wishing to participate in the global jihad either on one's own or with a small group of trusted associates, and there should not exist any "organization for operations." Hence, the global jihadi movement should discourage any direct organizational bonds between the leadership and the operative units.

The same goal of decentralization is applied in al-Suri's training doctrines; training should be moved to "every house, every quarter and every village of the Muslim countries." ... For al-Suri, the issue is not only that of decentralization, but also of transforming the jihadi cause into a mass phenomenon.

For local homeland security professionals, it is always worth noting that terrorists are most likely to manifest themselves in small groups or individuals.

One key question is whether the jihadist cause could or would ever be picked up by a critical mass of Muslims worldwide. Mass movements tend to peter out, often before they reach this critical mass, especially when an insistence is made that fighters should be true believers in the cause.

And that's just what Al-Suri insists upon. He argues that jihadist fighters should be fully ideologically motivated for the fight. He wants true believers:

The decisive factor for successful jihadi training is the moral motivation and the desire to fight, not knowledge in the use of arms, al-Suri asserts. If the ideological program is not fully digested and the mental preparation is absent, weapons training is of no use.

In an audiotaped interview in the late 1990s, al-Suri recalled how he had second doubts about the training that many Arab volunteers received in Peshawar and in Afghanistan, especially those hailing from the Gulf countries, since they more often than not failed to share his radical ideological platform:

"I am not prepared to train [people] in shooting practices because I think they will fire back at us justifying this by the fatwas of the Muslim Brothers and the Azhar clerics … People come to us with empty heads and leave us with empty heads ... They have done nothing for Islam. This is because they have not received any ideological or doctrinal training"

From the perspective of terrorist vulnerability, it is revealing that al-Suri questions the devotion of even many of those who went to Afghanistan. This tells me that, wherever there is a terrorist group, it's never a sure bet that all of them are going to be fully committed. This is a vulnerability for them.

Homegrown Jihadism: U.S. & Europe

Two recent stories contrast the situation in Europe and the U.S. regarding homegrown jihadism.

The Christian Science Monitor reports that al Qaeda is finding the U.S. to be "sterile ground" for jihadism. The basic reasons are fairly simple: U.S. Muslims tend to be better educated, with higher incomes and social standing. The imams in their mosques tend to preach assimilation, rather than the extremism found in many European mosques.

"We weren't isolated growing up. We were part of the culture," says Hala Kotb, who grew up outside Washington in a family that inculcated a success ethic. "Religion was important, but not so much that you'd have to cover your head or if you don't pray five times a day, that's it - nothing like that. There were a lot more progressive attitudes" within her local Muslim community.

The young Muslims quoted in the article say that the danger for the U.S. is to overreach and end up alienating U.S. Muslims. One young Muslim calls the FBI's intense scrutiny on Muslim-Americans "good for the short term, but bad in the long term."

The young Muslims interviewed for this story chose their words carefully, but their inference is clear: They worry that suspicion toward Muslims has been building since 9/11, and they suggest that US intervention in Iraq and its support for Israel cause angst among many Arab-Americans.

FBI spokesman John Miller says that the Bureau is putting more effort into community outreach, and he adds that in a number of cases, the FBI has intervened to prevent potential jihadist terrorism in the U.S.

My own take is that a balance must always be struck, with the single most important variable being the establishment of trust. A certain level of intrusion can be tolerable to most people, provided that they perceive it as trustworthy and fair.

Meanwhile, across the pond, Terrorism Monitor examines the situation in Scandinavia, and finds it much worse:

In a security report released in September, PET, the Danish domestic intelligence agency, warned that the largest threat to Denmark, as in most European countries, comes from small, unsophisticated groups that are "inspired by al-Qaeda's global jihad ideology but can act autonomously and apparently without external control, support or planning."

[T]he overwhelming majority of terrorist activities taking place in Scandinavia currently are carried out by homegrown networks.

The article examines the cases of a number of young people arrested in Denmark, who were turned on to jihadism via the Internet and had an unusual profile for jihadists:

What is striking about the members of the Mujahedon network, aside from their extremely young age and operational un-sophistication, is their unusual profile. All three seem to have backgrounds and interests that have little to do with those of an Islamic fundamentalist: they appear to be young men with a greater fascination for violence rather than for the ideology of committed jihadis. Ramic is a troubled teenager who lives with his parents and is a regular hashish consumer (Sydsvenskan, May 3). Ganjin is also known as a consumer and petty smuggler of soft drugs. Fahlen is the son of a wealthy Swedish family and, while acknowledging an interest in Islam, claims not to have converted. Despite these backgrounds, the three developed a sudden fascination with radical Islam and, almost immediately after, began to send threats online.

Their knowledge of Islam is virtually non-existent and their fascination with jihad seems to be dictated by their rebellious nature rather than a deep ideological conviction. Nevertheless, these "improvised jihadis" seem to be the norm in Scandinavia.

This "non-ideological" jihadism was also recently described by Brian Michael Jenkins in his book, Unconquerable Nation (my review is here). Jenkins writes:

It is a trajectory we often see in terrorist organizations. Well-educated ideologues like Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri initiate the campaign. Violence is for them a means to an end, but as the organization grows, it recruits "soldiers" who share their beliefs ... The 9/11 attackers fit this category. As the violence continues and the earlier veterans are killed off or picked up, a third generation emerges. It usually lacks the intellect and ideological grounding of the first generation, which still dominates the leadership; it is more attracted by death and destruction. This is the generation in which we find the thugs, including, until his death, Zarqawi.

Invariably, tensions arise between the strategists of the first generation and the harder men of the third generation, who push for ever-escalating violence without concern for its longer-term political consequences.

I interpret this as a possible source of vulnerability for the terrorists. Thugs who are primarily interested in violence, rather than advancing an ideology, may be more likely to take unwise risks and expose the organization.

Chertoff: Local Police Are First Preventers

On Monday, DHS Secretary Chertoff spoke of the importance of local law enforcement - and the importance of sharing information with them - at the annual conference of the International Association of the Chiefs of Police. Chertoff told the police chiefs:

You are the most likely to detect the beginning phases of a possible plot, particularly a homegrown plot.

[T]he third area I want to focus on ... is the increasing threat of homegrown plots -- that is to say plots arising in local communities, involving local people, American citizens, who may become radicalized over the Internet or because of a recruiter and train themselves, again -- with networks, small groups -- and then would carry out the kinds of attacks that we saw, for example, in London last year...

Chertoff said he's committed to ensuring that local and federal information-sharing is a two-way street. To this end, he said DHS will continue to:

1. Continue to develop the national network of intelligence fusion centers, with 35 centers active by the end of fiscal year 2007
2. Expedite the classified, secret level clearance process, so that local law enforcement can be cleared more quickly to review classified data
3. Open up communication channels and training opportunities for local law enforcement

As I see it, one of the salient points in Chertoff's speech is his emphasis on the homegrown threat. Others have noted that the worldwide jihadist movement is evolving into a loosely connected network of small cells that can spring up spontaneously (i.e., the "seed crystal" method of recruiting, which I recently discussed).

Local authorities are in the best position to "take the temperature" of the local environment and detect the possible formation of new threats.