Terrorism in the USA:threat & response [Archive] - Page 2

bourbon

04-16-2013, 06:03 PM

timed to go off when there were a maximum number of people around,
at a very high profile event,
The bombing occurred after the professionals and serious amateur runners had already finished – skipping the timeframe where there would be the most live-tv coverage. The people it targeted, who were finishing at that time, were the types who run to raise money for charity – normal Joes. The people who were standing around cheering, were likely to have been friends and families of those normal Joes.

From this, my civilian, untrained self concludes, whoever did this was a pretty proficient terrorist, who either is a natural born genius who read a lot or was pretty well trained by people who knew what they were about.
Yeah, maybe. But the last few years of thwarted domestic terrorist attacks has involved a cavalcade of retards (literally in several cases) – so maybe the bar has just been set so low that “average” looks like “genius”.

slapout9

04-16-2013, 06:08 PM

The people it targeted, who were finishing at that time, were the types who run to raise money for charity – normal Joes. The people who were standing around cheering, were likely to have been friends and families of those normal Joes.

In other words he wanted it to hurt the most vulnerable, the most innocent of all present?

slapout9

04-16-2013, 06:12 PM

bourbon, whats your overall assessment if you don't mind giving it?

carl

04-16-2013, 06:19 PM

The object perhaps was the average guy, the average American. That was the target in the failed Times Square attack too, average people in a very famous 'American' place. Times Square and the Boston Marathon are both things that would appear on the front cover of a 'Visit American' travel brochure.

In addition maybe the timing has something to do with relaxing as an event winds down. I read that is the best time to hit a patrol, when they are approaching the end and beginning to relax. This whole thing seems a cut above average in execution.

I am not trying to be contrary for its own sake, just playing devil's advocate.

slapout9

04-16-2013, 06:35 PM

In addition maybe the timing has something to do with relaxing as an event winds down. I read that is the best time to hit a patrol, when they are approaching the end and beginning to relax. This whole thing seems a cut above average in execution.

That is also the most dangerous time when transporting a prisoner...at the beginning and the end at least they used to teach that in my day.:wry:

Anytime you have multiple devices it indicates to me at least some higher form of planning and organization. Which always elevates the overall dangerousness IMO.

bourbon

04-16-2013, 06:59 PM

In other words he wanted it to hurt the most vulnerable, the most innocent of all present?
I may be making too much of a generalization in terms of runners and spectators at the time; but it looks that way to me.

As an example my cousin was down by the finish line but left 30-60 minutes before the bombing; the "event" for her was watching the pro's finish - after that it was just kind of like watching a torrent of neighborhood joggers.

The Boston marathon also draws pro and serious runners from all over the world; the winners are usually like Kenyan or Ethiopian. When this international crowd is finishing is probably the height of live-tv coverage. The bomber(s) did not select this timeframe to hit.

Is such a change in the "demographics" relevant? I think we can't overlook it.

slapout9

04-16-2013, 07:06 PM

Is such a change in the "demographics" relevant? I think we can't overlook it.

That is very significant ! if it turns out to be correct, which I think it may well be. The Rich and The Powerful are either protected by vast public resources or the private resources of the rich. The average Joe or Jane is vulnerable and they are a very,very big Target!:(

slapout9

04-16-2013, 07:12 PM

Stan

04-16-2013, 07:16 PM

We need Stan to surface and give some insight on this! This is straight up his alley.

Sorry Slap, just finished my day job !

Where to begin ?

First off, let’s discuss what we really have. Nothing on official sites is in and nothing should be as forensics takes tons of time.

A simple pipe bomb with that much of a blast effect and secondary’s intended to bounce victims back and forth is not some average bomb maker on a lone quest. They had help and these were not some ordinary pipe bombs in backpacks. It’s also clear that some of these failed devices were intended for First Responders.

Imagine how many people yesterday had backpacks on. How many put them down, discarded their trash, etc. ?

As far as fragmentation goes, detonated at ground level against a wall and direct the Sierra forward up to 50 yards low level. Claymore anyone ?

Some speculate that extremists groups (KKK and McVeigh) were angry with failed homeland security Bravo Sierra and really angry with a bunch of fast Africans winning every year at what is considered nearly as popular as the Super Bowl.

Will keep you informed :cool:

bourbon

04-16-2013, 07:42 PM

That is very significant ! if it turns out to be correct, which I think it may well be. The Rich and The Powerful are either protected by vast public resources or the private resources of the rich. The average Joe or Jane is vulnerable and they are a very,very big Target!:(
Well, I wouldn't necessarily put it that way - but your perspective may give insight towards suspect groups or ideologies. If this "demographic" insight is legit, then which target would: the radical/anarchist hit? The militia type? The jihadi? The marxist? The eco-warrior? etc…

As far as breaking out the class-struggle lenses? I wouldn't consider most Kenyan pro-marathoners to rich and powerful. This may sound counter-intuitive to military-types - but marathons and "fitness" would probably be considered bourgeoisie activities in our country. Frankly, it costs extra to eat healthy in our country - and time spent exercising is time not on the job. Its a paradox, but I believe the lowest socio-economic levels in our country have the highest rate of obesity.

carl

04-16-2013, 07:47 PM

More uniformed speculation from me.

As Bourbon suggested, what if timing was intended to miss the foreigners? This thing is as much PR as anything else and it wouldn't play as well in countries in Africa, the Levant and South Asia if Kenyans and Ethiopians got blown up.

Hey Stan: They say it was not a high explosive and I think the smoke was white. Would a black powder bomb do the trick?

bourbon

04-16-2013, 07:48 PM

bourbon, whats your overall assessment if you don't mind giving it?
The daily foot-traffic at the Boylston St Starbucks had the highest concentration of attractive women in all of New England. Someone detonated a bomb in front of it.

I'm thinking ugly chicks are responsible. :rolleyes:

bourbon

04-16-2013, 07:55 PM

A simple pipe bomb with that much of a blast effect and secondary’s intended to bounce victims back and forth is not some average bomb maker on a lone quest. They had help and these were not some ordinary pipe bombs in backpacks. It’s also clear that some of these failed devices were intended for First Responders.

Imagine how many people yesterday had backpacks on. How many put them down, discarded their trash, etc. ?

As far as fragmentation goes, detonated at ground level against a wall and direct the Sierra forward up to 50 yards low level. Claymore anyone ?
Thanks Stan, I know you can only share so much on such topics. This is helpful insight.

Stan

04-16-2013, 08:25 PM

Hey Stan: They say it was not a high explosive and I think the smoke was white. Would a black powder bomb do the trick?

Hey Carl,
I wouldn't go jumping to conclusions based on a white cloud of smoke before X-spray samples are in with forensics. Black powder, that is the real stuff made of sulfur, etc., is rare these days in ammunition like shotgun shells which contain pelletized powders. These so-called smokeless powders or even pyrodex are class C vs A and among other things easier to obtain.

Stan

04-16-2013, 08:26 PM

Thanks Stan, I know you can only share so much on such topics. This is helpful insight.

Glad to help where I can and there is always PM ;)

carl

04-16-2013, 08:47 PM

Hey Carl,
I wouldn't go jumping to conclusions based on a white cloud of smoke before X-spray samples are in with forensics.

Wise words. I get all wrapped up in trying to figure things out and can't stop myself.

You can buy black powder ready made here. I checked one web site and they can ship up to 50#. There is a big market for muzzle loading hunting, re-enacters and those who like to shoot black powder guns and cannon.

Stan

04-16-2013, 09:17 PM

Wise words. I get all wrapped up in trying to figure things out and can't stop myself.

You can buy black powder ready made here. I checked one web site and they can ship up to 50#. There is a big market for muzzle loading hunting, re-enacters and those who like to shoot black powder guns and cannon.

No worries, we all have our days !

All you need is some hot water and a little of this and that, and you still get basic black powder with less risk of blowing yourself up :D

50 pounds is a lot of Sierra. Wonder why we can't keep the criminals from playing around :rolleyes:

carl

04-16-2013, 09:32 PM

Stan:

They deliver it Fed-Ex ground to an actual house, no PO Box, and they require a name and a birthday. So that may discourage the riff-raff. Of course if you were planning on clearing out of the country...

If it was low order, doesn't that mean if properly done, there may be no record of commercial purchase? Mixing up black powder yourself or maybe matchheads even, wouldn't leave much of a trail to follow.

ganulv

04-16-2013, 09:45 PM

As soon as I heard about the explosions my thought was that it might have had as much to do with Tax Day and Patriots’ Day as with the Marathon.

bourbon

04-16-2013, 09:51 PM

carl

04-16-2013, 09:58 PM

As soon as I heard about the explosions my thought was that it might have had as much to do with Tax Day and Patriots’ Day as with the Marathon.

If it was directed against the gov instead of the Americans, a gov facility would be a much more likely target I think.

Besides, nobody much outside MA, ME and WI has ever heard of Patriots Day.

ganulv

04-16-2013, 10:07 PM

Besides, nobody much outside MA, ME and WI has ever heard of Patriots Day.

Which may or may not be suggestive. (PD is very much a “real” holiday in Mass—banks are open, but schools and state offices are closed.)

Dayuhan

04-16-2013, 10:09 PM

Did the Boston Marathon Bomber Time the Explosions to Guarantee the Most Possible Casualties? (http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/04/16/boston_bombs_timing_were_the_marathon_attacks_time d_to_maximize_casualties.html), by Chris Kirk. Slate, April 16, 2013.

At this point we don't know if the devices were timed or detonated by cell phone. In fact we know so little at this point that speculation is just that - speculation. I know the impulse to speculate is overwhelming, but there's neither a basis nor a need for assumptions or conclusions.

Steve Blair

04-16-2013, 10:14 PM

If it was directed against the gov instead of the Americans, a gov facility would be a much more likely target I think.

Besides, nobody much outside MA, ME and WI has ever heard of Patriots Day.

I'd second this, if we're calling stuff in from the sidelines. I'd also postulate that most Americans outside of a specific socioeconomic circle really don't care about the Marathon. If you wanted to hit "heartland America" where it hurt, you'd go for NASCAR or NCAA football. We also shouldn't assume that the bombs went off when they were supposed to.

Actually, some of this reminded me of the old-school IRA stuff. And after all, this (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-22158392) was only decided on Monday. Not saying that it's necessarily linked to this, mind, but some folks have long memories and not everything that happens today has to be about what happened today (or even yesterday).

Steve Blair

04-16-2013, 10:15 PM

At this point we don't know if the devices were timed or detonated by cell phone. In fact we know so little at this point that speculation is just that - speculation. I know the impulse to speculate is overwhelming, but there's neither a basis nor a need for assumptions or conclusions.

Quite. There's been plenty of uninformed blather so far.

carl

04-16-2013, 10:36 PM

I'd second this, if we're calling stuff in from the sidelines. I'd also postulate that most Americans outside of a specific socioeconomic circle really don't care about the Marathon. If you wanted to hit "heartland America" where it hurt, you'd go for NASCAR or NCAA football. We also shouldn't assume that the bombs went off when they were supposed to.

Most Americans don't care much about the Boston Marathon or know much about it, but is that true about people overseas? I don't know. NASCAR might be a more lucrative target but how many overseas people know about it? Again, I don't know.

(I was just thinking too that maybe the South scares foreigners, violent rednecks and all that. I know that if you tell people overseas you are from Chicago they can be just a little scared of that. All those movies had an effect.)

Perhaps all this talking about this is to no point, but it is entertaining, sort of like the old men sitting around the general store discussing the world. Most of us around here are old.

ganulv

04-17-2013, 12:24 AM

TheCurmudgeon

04-17-2013, 02:13 AM

As soon as I heard about the explosions my thought was that it might have had as much to do with Tax Day and Patriots’ Day as with the Marathon.

If you were a home grown group or individual who wanted to "start a revolution" in the US against the government Patriots Day is the perfect day to do it - the day that Paul Revere made his famous ride almost to Concord where the local militia fired the "shot heard round the world" - it would have huge significance to a US based anti-government group.

carl

04-17-2013, 03:56 AM

slapout9

04-17-2013, 05:02 AM

As far as breaking out the class-struggle lenses? I wouldn't consider most Kenyan pro-marathoners to rich and powerful.

Sorry, that wasn't what I was getting at. Having worked on both Public and Private Security details they are hard Targets compared to Joe or Jane Doe. So my point was supposed to be that he/she/group X/or whatever went for the most vulnerable group of Targets, which was the general public in this case.

slapout9

04-17-2013, 05:04 AM

the daily foot-traffic at the boylston st starbucks had the highest concentration of attractive women in all of new england. Someone detonated a bomb in front of it.

I'm thinking ugly chicks are responsible. :rolleyes:

:d:d:d don't know why the smiley faces didn't come up!

slapout9

04-17-2013, 05:10 AM

If you wanted to hit "heartland America" where it hurt, you'd go for NASCAR or NCAA football.

Except NASCAR and NCAA football venues are much harder Targets than a 26 plus mile open air type event.

bourbon

04-17-2013, 05:53 AM

:d:d:d don't know why the smiley faces didn't come up!
Certain truths are so real that they can only be consumed through sarcasm and humor. As brother Ted will attest (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpVM9aBn9DE).

bourbon

04-17-2013, 06:03 AM

At this point we don't know if the devices were timed or detonated by cell phone. In fact we know so little at this point that speculation is just that - speculation. I know the impulse to speculate is overwhelming, but there's neither a basis nor a need for assumptions or conclusions.
Did we ask you, Advanced Persistent Troll? Tell your Guoanbu friends to gfy for me.

J Wolfsberger

04-17-2013, 11:10 AM

If you were a home grown group or individual who wanted to "start a revolution" in the US against the government Patriots Day is the perfect day to do it - the day that Paul Revere made his famous ride almost to Concord where the local militia fired the "shot heard round the world" - it would have huge significance to a US based anti-government group.

So far, the published speculation of the form "home grown group or individual who wanted to "start a revolution" in the US against the government" has come from a variety of hard Left types in "respectable" venues who (at least the honest ones) are expressing a hope that it's some conservative, white male. Their expressed concern is that if a foreign (or Islamist) terrorist or group is responsible, it will derail the agenda.

I won't link to the sites because such contemptible blather shouldn't be promoted in any way.

They only thing we KNOW is that some psychotic(s) set bombs that killed and maimed a lot of people. We can be confident that if and when we catch up to him/her, he will have some blather about why he/she was justified. If anyone wants to pre-blame a particular part of the domestic political spectrum, then be intellectually honest enough to acknowledge that, when the facts are in, their condemnation will attach to WHICHEVER part of the spectrum the psycho(s) profess adherence to.

(Anyone who want to disagree gets to hear my "theory" as to why it was pro-choice activists trying to punish supporters of "Run for the Cure" because the Koman Foundation tried to pull funding for Planned Parenthood.)

omarali50

04-17-2013, 01:25 PM

carl

04-17-2013, 02:01 PM

Omar:

I am no expert but I know that a lot of the bombings in the US in the old days were labor and mob related. As such I would be surprised if many were solved.

Slap, Stan and Selil are the men I think.

J Wolfsberger

04-17-2013, 03:03 PM

Some years back I worked on a couple of programs that were looking into ways to harden high value targets. Bombs were an obvious avenue of attack, so we looked into the records from various government agencies (FAA, FBI, ATF, etc.).

Bombings that were grudge motivated (my term), such as "judge decided against me," "bast@rds fired me," "dirt bag cheating on me," etc. were usually solved, often pretty quickly.

Those that were politically motivated took a lot longer. Some never got solved. It depends on the expertise, discipline, skill and goals of the perpetrators, as well as the effectiveness of law enforcement and intelligence organizations.

One thing that did surprise me was the dramatic, wide difference between the number of bombing incidents that actually occur, and the number that make the national news.

Stan

04-17-2013, 03:12 PM

I am curious (and I know this is a site where someone will know such things): How likely is it for a bombing to remain unsolved in the United States? I read somewhere that there were multiple bombings per year in the US in the 1970s (usually with little or no loss of life); how many remained unsolved? I assume low profile casualty-less bombings may not attract a lot of resources, but what about bombings which resulted in deaths or injuries? How many remain unsolved?

Things are a whole lot better than in the 70s and I understand the FBI Cold Case Unit is still looking into those too. Go to their website and search for cold cases involving explosives. Not that many are there.

Forensics and X-ray to mention a few are so far advanced that we can pull DNA off of a burned and charred wire, piece of cloth, metal, etc. Within seconds using X-spray, I can tell you what the explosive compound was and be 90% correct. Not that I will know the exact amounts of the individual chemicals and compounds, but close enough.

Some explosives-related cases here are eight years old, but we are still at it. Sometimes there's just a single item missing from putting the case to bed. We chased our Estonian mad bomber for nearly five years and he knew it. Some of his devices were found and destroyed before he got to employ them. He got smart one day and placed a vintage calculator board along side his explosives thinking it would make him look like something out of a movie with high tech motherboards and fancy wiring. What he had not realized, was his board remained intact post blast and the remainder of the vintage calculator was later found in his basement. Gotcha you SOB :D

SWJ Blog

04-17-2013, 03:20 PM

Hunt for Suspects, Motives in Boston Bombing 'Wide Open' (http://smallwarsjournal.com/node/14015)

Entry Excerpt:

--------
Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/node/14015) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

carl

04-17-2013, 04:17 PM

NYT reports that it was a black powder device that used kitchen type egg timers to set them off:
The pressure cookers were filled with nails, ball bearings and black powder, and the devices were triggered by “kitchen-type” egg timers, one official said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/17/us/officials-investigate-boston-explosions.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130417

People keep saying these were 'rudimentary' devices so as to denigrate them. It seems to me that making a device out of commonly available materials is a good way to avoid leaving a trail or drawing attention while preparing. The materials in this may have been rudimentary but the effects and the malevolent brain work were not.

The materials used in 9-11, box cutters, were rudimentary but the concept behind the op and the effects were not.

Stan

04-17-2013, 04:49 PM

People keep saying these were 'rudimentary' devices so as to denigrate them. It seems to me that making a device out of commonly available materials is a good way to avoid leaving a trail or drawing attention while preparing. The materials in this may have been rudimentary but the effects and the malevolent brain work were not.

The materials used in 9-11, box cutters, were rudimentary but the concept behind the op and the effects were not.

Good points, Carl !
I would also point out that as primitive (albeit very effective) as the 7/7 bombings (devices) were, a single store receipt found near a train station trash bin led to the store where such rudimentary items can be commonly bought. The store owner ID'd the purchaser and the rest is history.

Pay me no mind, but I'll wait for something more specific than that of the NYT as a source ;)

slapout9

04-17-2013, 05:31 PM

I read somewhere that there were multiple bombings per year in the US in the 1970s (usually with little or no loss of life); how many remained unsolved?

I started my Law Enforcement career when all that was going on, things are bad now but they have been a lot worse believe it or not:eek:. I would research a group called "The Weathermen" also the "The SDS" (students for a Democratic society). The reason I want go into more detail is a lot of the suspects essentially escaped justice and went on to positions of influence inside our present Government and other Institutions. You can find out some of that info and their present status when you research the radical groups I mentioned. Here is a link to one such person http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Ayers

omarali50

04-17-2013, 06:29 PM

Indeed, sixties radicals sometimes did very well in later life. To some extent that is a function of class; if you come from a better-off, highly educated background, then your chances of recovering from a crime (any crime) are much better. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/04/10/how-1960s-radicals-ended-up-teaching-your-kids.html. Leftists recover using left wing sympathies and networks, but I would bet that rich people in general dont do too badly.

SWJ Blog

04-17-2013, 07:00 PM

Authorities Arrest Suspect in Boston Bombings (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/authorities-arrest-suspect-in-boston-bombings)

Entry Excerpt:

--------
Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/authorities-arrest-suspect-in-boston-bombings) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

Stan

04-17-2013, 07:21 PM

... but I would bet that rich people in general dont do too badly.

Hmmm, I would argue that they end up being targeted. They do here, each and every day. Hard to squeeze a middle class man out of something he does not have !

Firn

04-17-2013, 07:49 PM

Things are a whole lot better than in the 70s and I understand the FBI Cold Case Unit is still looking into those too. Go to their website and search for cold cases involving explosives. Not that many are there.

Forensics and X-ray to mention a few are so far advanced that we can pull DNA off of a burned and charred wire, piece of cloth, metal, etc. Within seconds using X-spray, I can tell you what the explosive compound was and be 90% correct. Not that I will know the exact amounts of the individual chemicals and compounds, but close enough.

Some explosives-related cases here are eight years old, but we are still at it. Sometimes there's just a single item missing from putting the case to bed. We chased our Estonian mad bomber for nearly five years and he knew it. Some of his devices were found and destroyed before he got to employ them. He got smart one day and placed a vintage calculator board along side his explosives thinking it would make him look like something out of a movie with high tech motherboards and fancy wiring. What he had not realized, was his board remained intact post blast and the remainder of the vintage calculator was later found in his basement. Gotcha you SOB :D

Good to know ;)

All technological advances in warfare, economy and police work seem to be relative in the sense that absolute performance does increase but what matters how well are you doing against your enemy, competitor or criminal SOB. Good to hear that it in this context things are going into the right direction.

In this specific case the amazing amount of visual data stored on phones, cameras and so forth should help the investigation a good deal. Most of that should be tagged with time and location. It seems highly unlikely that there is no visual trace about how those bombs got there and no intel to extract.

P.S: Just read that a suspect got arrested based on two videos. It is obviously only part of the story, in any case hopefully they got the right person.

carl

04-17-2013, 09:06 PM

Stan

04-17-2013, 09:10 PM

P.S: Just read that a suspect got arrested based on two videos. It is obviously only part of the story, in any case hopefully they got the right person.

According to our sites, there are no suspects in custody as of 5 minutes ago.

carl

04-17-2013, 09:20 PM

In this specific case the amazing amount of visual data stored on phones, cameras and so forth should help the investigation a good deal. Most of that should be tagged with time and location. It seems highly unlikely that there is no visual trace about how those bombs got there and no intel to extract.

P.S: Just read that a suspect got arrested based on two videos. It is obviously only part of the story, in any case hopefully they got the right person.

Slap can check me on this but that video stuff often sounds a lot better than it is. Most of it by necessity shoots from the top down and you can hinder it with a hat. Ground level stuff will be cluttered with intervening bodies. They undoubtedly will get some good evidence from all the photos and videos but it ain't magic.

An accident at the Reno Air races involving a P-51 was an example though of video proving to be of vital importance in finding a cause. If you look at the NTSB report it is filled with extremely detailed images, some of parts actually failing in flight. The report is fascinating. The aircraft was N79111 if you want to find it on the net.

slapout9

04-18-2013, 06:01 AM

Slap:

For the last two or three hours the news has been reporting an 'arrest is imminent' or 'an arrest has been made' or 'there has been no arrest' or 'there is somebody who they are interested in' and on and on. Is this a case of various officers who may or may not know anything getting played by or playing some reporter or 'ettes?

IMO it is a media F*** up of the highest magnitude......all those contracted highly paid expert consultants with their phony and or obsolete LE contacts just stepped in a big pile of it. It is really pathetic:(

slapout9

04-18-2013, 06:06 AM

They undoubtedly will get some good evidence from all the photos and videos but it ain't magic.

IMO getting the photo/video is the easy part and the FBI has all that super duper stuff to enhance everything to a point that is truly incredible compared to when I was working the street...... BUT!!! getting a name to go with the picture is the hard part!!!! that can take a while.

davidbfpo

04-18-2013, 07:17 AM

After the all the analysis the NYT reports:
...in the end, it apparently came down to a bitter local grudge. A former justice of the peace whose legal and political career collapsed in a hard-fought legal battle was accused Wednesday of killing the two prosecutors, who had been his courtroom rivals. And his wife not only named him as the gunman, but also confessed to having been the driver in both shootings as part of her role in the vendetta, the authorities said.

Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/us/woman-charged-in-texas-prosecutors-killings.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_ee_20130418&pagewanted=all

davidbfpo

04-18-2013, 07:47 AM

A sensible BBC report 'The Boston Marathon bomber: Caught on film?' and the role of the body the National Digital Multimedia Evidence Processing Lab (unclear whether a public or private body):http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22191029

Missing from the article is any mention of the level of human and technical resources needed, thousands of hours of footage take a very long time to assemble, analyse etc to an evidential standard.

Our experience is that CCTV is not the "magic wand" in crime detection; I cannot recall a good commentary on the value of mass citizen footage.

bourbon

04-18-2013, 05:26 PM

Useful info-graphic from the NYT (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/04/17/us/caught-in-the-blast-at-the-boston-marathon.html). What is not noted on it though, is that the entrance for the out-bound side of Copley Station is on the corner of Boylston and Dartmouth St. Under 500 ft from the first bomb and the finish line.

carl

04-18-2013, 05:59 PM

By outbound, do you mean out of the city?

davidbfpo

04-18-2013, 06:19 PM

A comment by Bill Bratton via WSJ, who was with Boston PD and is in London in his advisory role. Nothing startling:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323309604578428742300416134.html#a rticleTabs%3Darticle

I am sure the SWJ Editor published the article 'Case Study: The IRA’s Hyde and Regent's Parks Attacks in London, July 20, 1982' by an EOD veteran as it was - sadly - topical. It makes an interesting comparison with this bombing, notably over the first responders, lack of witnesses and difficulties in assembling an evidential case:http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/case-study-the-ira%E2%80%99s-hyde-and-regent-parks-attacks-in-london-july-20-1982

Two RUSI analysts have added a commentary, which draws on Jennifer Cole's expertise in emergency management:http://www.rusi.org/analysis/commentary/ref:C516D53C0587A4/

bourbon

04-18-2013, 07:15 PM

By outbound, do you mean out of the city?
Correct, away from "downtown" or the center of the city. Here is a map of the MBTA system (https://gs1.wac.edgecastcdn.net/8019B6/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_ly8q7uBVxA1r54c4oo1_1280.jpg) - Copley Station is where E-branch of the Green Line converges/splits with the other three branches of the Green Line.

Unlike other stations, you must go outside and cross the street if you want to switch inbound/outbound tracks at Copley Station. You cannot use the Boylston and Dartmouth St entrance for the inbound track. The inbound entrance is on the other side of Boylston St. near the middle of the library.

slapout9

04-18-2013, 07:20 PM

Assumption:
It was not a lone bomber, he/she had help.

Why?
1-timing, the bombs were timed somehow?

2-multiple placements.

3-concealment and camouflage was needed until detonation.

Anybody else feel free to jump in and add comments!

Every crime scene has 2 things left behind, the physical evidence and the perpetrator(s) behavior. I have listed the first 3 three and still think they are accurate. The fourth is escape behavior. Nobody has claimed credit....that is revealing in itself in that it involves escape behavior meaning these people X or group X had and apparently have a prepared get away method to evade their capture. OK turn yourn flame throwers on and poke some holes in the theory!

Firn

04-18-2013, 07:27 PM

carl

04-18-2013, 07:38 PM

The fourth is escape behavior. Nobody has claimed credit....that is revealing in itself in that it involves escape behavior meaning these people X or group X had and apparently have a prepared get away method to evade their capture. OK turn yourn flame throwers on and poke some holes in the theory!

I wondered why no claims of credit. I never thought of that, that they wouldn't make any until the perps were safe...out of the country and in a position to make a videotape. You southern boys think good.

Unfortunately, it seems these perps are good too.

Stan

04-18-2013, 08:01 PM

bourbon

04-18-2013, 08:06 PM

@davidbfpo: I think in this case the stakes are high and the ressources invested huge as it is certainly not your regular street robbery. While all those cameras did in this case nothing to detect and prevent the crime they should a good job at supporting the investigation.
Oddly enough, the cameras from the Lord & Taylor department store have been reported to have the best coverage of the second blast, which occurred across the other side of the street. They put up the cameras covering the street because they were getting hit by rip-and-run thefts – people would dash out the street exit w/ arms full of merchandise into waiting cars. The cameras could catch the license plates.

carl

04-18-2013, 08:23 PM

Carl and Slap,
What if they never claim responsibility? What if the fruit cake simple got off on it and is long gone.

Tons of things happen over here each week with not a stinking sole claiming responsibility.

Why all the significance on some Delta Hotel claiming responsibility ? Gives us a direction to search in ? Assuming somebody else decides to claim first ?

Just thinking and speculating. I am an old man and that is what old men do.

You could be very right. If there is a political angle to it, if, then claiming responsibility is pretty important. If there is no political angle to it, there is no need. Serial killers don't claim responsibility often.

Dayuhan

04-18-2013, 09:48 PM

I wondered why no claims of credit. I never thought of that, that they wouldn't make any until the perps were safe...out of the country and in a position to make a videotape.

Or because they aren't in a position to leave the country and claiming credit would consequently be not a very smart thing to do. No reason to assume that someone from outside the country was or wasn't responsible.

ganulv

04-18-2013, 10:04 PM

Thanks for the info about the potential visual evidence. Doesn't the relative recent and wide incorporation of GPS in a sorts of camera devices as well as all that wireless geolocating help to filter and organize the data? Still a lot of images to look at and maybe it doesn't come as a surprise that the first lead based on images comes from CCTV. They should be far better integrated into the various organisations and procedures.

I am sure it would be helpful as long as there is a recognition of the limitations. My handheld GPS sometimes gets accuracy within three to four meters with WAAS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_Area_Augmentation_System#Comparison_of_accura cy) activated, clear skies, and no tall buildings around. If I understand correctly, some mobile phones are also GPS devices but many figure location via proximity to WiFi hotspots and cell towers. Timestamping is also an issue to consider. Not everyone has the time set correctly on their camera or mobile device.

After an initial sorting via the EXIF data (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exchangeable_image_file_format) a visual inspection would turn up a percentage of images taken with devices with the time set wrong. And to be thorough, there would be the need to sort through the images to see if any were excluded from the pile for the same reason. As with any data reduction, getting the last little bit is time-consuming as all get out.

TheCurmudgeon

04-18-2013, 10:17 PM

davidbfpo

04-18-2013, 10:22 PM

Regarding the absence to date of a claim for responsibility. There is a serious disadvantage in using modern electronic means of communication, especially if all the US agencies are looking for a clue. Posting a letter remains largely anonymous if done with care. Is anyone checking "snail" mail?

The pressure is now going up as the FBI have released CCTV and stills of two backpacking adult males:http://imgur.com/a/wRl0g

carl

04-18-2013, 10:27 PM

Or because they aren't in a position to leave the country and claiming credit would consequently be not a very smart thing to do. No reason to assume that someone from outside the country was or wasn't responsible.

Thank you.

carl

04-18-2013, 10:30 PM

Regarding the photos of the suspects. Black hat has the bill of the cap worn forward and is wearing sunglasses. White hat let his sense of style get the better of him. He is wearing his ball cap backwards and is not wearing sunglasses. Lapse of discipline.

bourbon

04-18-2013, 10:36 PM

Looking at the pictures and adding to that no claim of credit, the choice of target and the specific location, I am going to speculate that this was not terrorism at all. It was two college kids, probably from Harvard or MIT, who just wanted to kill people and see if they could get away with it. They picked a location they knew would be filmed so they could watch their handiwork over and over again.
Possibly. I imagine such a decision does not happen overnight; there would be a series of other incidents escalating up to this attack – some non-lethal bombings and/or solo murders somewhere in their history.

Serial killers tend to start out with animals.

carl

04-18-2013, 10:39 PM

Looking at the pictures and adding to that no claim of credit, the choice of target and the specific location, I am going to speculate that this was not terrorism at all. It was two college kids, probably from Harvard or MIT, who just wanted to kill people and see if they could get away with it. They picked a location they knew would be filmed so they could watch their handiwork over and over again.

Nah. That is an ego trip. I would think part of the trip would be having a cool device to brag about. These devices weren't cool, they just worked. I think the minds behind this were looking for something in addition to ego enhancement.

But my spec is just spec too.

TheCurmudgeon

04-19-2013, 12:41 AM

Nah. That is an ego trip. I would think part of the trip would be having a cool device to brag about. These devices weren't cool, they just worked. I think the minds behind this were looking for something in addition to ego enhancement.

But my spec is just spec too.

Yeah, but that has its contradictions. If the point is to kill in a manner that there is no to track it back to you then you don't want something cool nor are you really going to brag - it is between you and your buddy. You have two bombs so that neither was in a position to be able to rat out the other. Just coming from there that town is full of college kids who are sure they know more than everyone else and are infallible. If all you wanted to do was kill you could do that at any shopping mall, but the placement of these bombs ensures they get great video for free from the internet without having to do anything other than download it like hundreds of thousands of other people. You and your buddy can watch it over and over again to your dark heart's content.

I guess I just can't see a good reason to attack this event. The day has meaning in both being tax day and Patriots day (and probably a hundred other anniversaries that have meaning to someone). But if it was tied to an attack on the US government by a homegrown group why not attack a federal building? The event is a international event but if that was your aim than why not attack when the winner was crossing the finish line? I am just not seeing a lot of international value to an attack four hours into the race. Plus no one is taking credit. Political terrorism is usually tied to some aim. It losses value if it is not tied to a cause or is not part of a larger barrage of attacks intended to cause widespread fear and panic. I guess I am not seeing a political or ideological tie in here. Seems murder is as good a reason as any.

Dayuhan

04-19-2013, 01:15 AM

Just coming from there that town is full of college kids who are sure they know more than everyone else and are infallible.

Those qualities are in no way unique to college kids, and generally don't lead to mayhem on this scale. Possible, yes... but probable?

But if it was tied to an attack on the US government by a homegrown group why not attack a federal building? The event is a international event but if that was your aim than why not attack when the winner was crossing the finish line?

They might have felt that a Federal building would be more likely to have some sort of security or surveillance system in place, and that there would be more of a security presence at the marathon when the winners were coming in. If you're looking for a soft target with significant visibility the tail end of an open air athletic event is a reasonable candidate. Of course a parade would be as good or better, but we obviously don't know the thinking involved. It may have been the most appealing target available in a given time window. It's not just a question of who they wanted to target, but of what sort of target they thought (not necessarily for entirely logical reasons) would give them the best chance of getting away with it.

At this point most of the speculation tells us more about the inherent prejudices of those doing the speculating than it does about the bombing: people will suspect whoever they are personally inclined to suspect. At this point nobody knows: it could be foreign or domestic, it could be from any number of different ideological extremes, it could be non-ideological. Best to keep an open mind until more information is available.

I personally hope it will turn out to be domestic, regardless of ideology, simply because I'd hate to see more overseas military complications, but that's hope, not expectation or assumption.

I do think that as the US draws down in Afghanistan there will be significant risk of major attack from jihadi sources, simply because the jihadis need to keep US boots on Muslim ground, but that's just an opinion.

carl

04-19-2013, 01:46 AM

I guess I just can't see a good reason to attack this event. The day has meaning in both being tax day and Patriots day (and probably a hundred other anniversaries that have meaning to someone). But if it was tied to an attack on the US government by a homegrown group why not attack a federal building? The event is a international event but if that was your aim than why not attack when the winner was crossing the finish line? I am just not seeing a lot of international value to an attack four hours into the race. Plus no one is taking credit. Political terrorism is usually tied to some aim. It losses value if it is not tied to a cause or is not part of a larger barrage of attacks intended to cause widespread fear and panic. I guess I am not seeing a political or ideological tie in here. Seems murder is as good a reason as any.

There are a lot of reasons to attack this event I think. First, it was an easy target and there was an escape route right there as Bourbon pointed out. Second, picking that particular spot insured there would be video that would be flashed around the world without having to lift a finger, even though the famous runners had finished hours before. Third, that the international types had left already is a good thing if you are playing to an international audience, you made sure you would mostly kill and maim Yanks, the occasional Chinese notwithstanding. Fourth, the Boston Marathon is known throughout the world, just like Times Square or the Twin Towers were so it would play as a symbolic strike at the US. Maybe the marathon isn't known to the extent those were but it is known in a lot of countries because those countries have runners there and their media will report on how they do.

A disadvantage too is all the video available. They had to know that they would be photographed during the event and probably there is video evidence of them rehearsing the route in the days and weeks beforehand. But they didn't care. White hat was so insouciant about it he wore his hat backwards (or maybe he just forgot). But if they already had a good escape route set up, as Slap suggested, they wouldn't care because they might figure they would be long gone by the time the video evidence was processed to the point where their photos were circulated. The names of those guys will be known within hours now but if they are gone, why should they care. Or maybe too they will make a last stand like the guys in Spain did.

Figure this speculative scenario. They do their op and get out of the country by a preplanned route. They make it back to someplace in which they feel safe. That might take a few days or weeks. Then when they get back they make a video 'splaining what they did and how and why they did it. That would play huge in various countries throughout the world. They hit the Yanks and they got out and got away with it. It wouldn't matter if in a few years or months we got them. Their hero status would have already been established and if they got killed they would be martyred heroes.

And then again I may be entirely wrong about it all and it was a couple of guys who were upset because the Starbucks customers had been undertipping them for years.

bourbon

04-19-2013, 02:03 AM

http://www.barstoolsports.com/boston/super-page/new-photo-of-suspect-fleeing-the-scene-has-gone-viral/

Releasing the images is paying dividends already.

This picture which has gone viral, places the white-hat suspect on the same block as the second bomb at the intersection of Boylston and Fairfield, turning onto Newbury St - after what looks like the explosion of the second bomb.

* Could be Photoshoped, but it isnt using the FBI released photos.

bourbon

04-19-2013, 03:49 AM

Reports of active shooter at MIT... Breaking. Reported MIT police officer.

At a bar across the bridge, now.

May be unrelated to bombing. Also had false report of gunman on MIT campus last month.

Dayuhan

04-19-2013, 04:32 AM

Figure this speculative scenario. They do their op and get out of the country by a preplanned route. They make it back to someplace in which they feel safe.

Why would you assume that they're leaving the country? Wouldn't the simplest explanation for the absence of any claim of responsibility be that the perpetrators are still in the country, have no intention of leaving, and don't want to provide evidence that might point to their identity or location?

carl

04-19-2013, 05:26 AM

Why would you assume that they're leaving the country? Wouldn't the simplest explanation for the absence of any claim of responsibility be that the perpetrators are still in the country, have no intention of leaving, and don't want to provide evidence that might point to their identity or location?

Because.

No.

bourbon

04-19-2013, 05:38 AM

Gunfire & explosions reported in Watertown....breaking on Mass tv.

slapout9

04-19-2013, 06:09 AM

Looking at the pictures and adding to that no claim of credit, the choice of target and the specific location, I am going to speculate that this was not terrorism at all. It was two college kids, probably from Harvard or MIT, who just wanted to kill people and see if they could get away with it. They picked a location they knew would be filmed so they could watch their handiwork over and over again.

Interesting? One of the photos I saw was one of the bombs placed near a USA Government mailbox:eek::eek: those things are made out of solid steel in order to contain a mail bomb:eek::eek: in other words that was an amateur place to put the bomb, it had to block or deflect a great deal of the blast. Not something a pro would do but a amateur-wannabe-big shot-college kid.......maybe.

bourbon

04-19-2013, 06:18 AM

S##t is going down in Watertown...

bourbon

04-19-2013, 06:57 AM

One marathon suspect reported captured, another on the loose in Watertown after firefight.

slapout9

04-19-2013, 07:06 AM

One marathon suspect reported captured, another on the loose in Watertown after firefight.

Boston Globe is reporting that it's them!

jmm99

04-19-2013, 07:27 AM

from 0121 thru 0254 (currently), with video of shooting, is here (http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/04/18/Boston-Police-Scanner-Massive-Shootout).

Good morning to Europe.

Regards

Mike

Firn

04-19-2013, 11:24 AM

The guardian live-blogs (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/19/boston-mit-police-dead-watertown) the whole story, which worked pretty well in other instances.

Summary [written 2 hours ago]

Ed Pilkington has just been in touch from Watertown. To summarise what we know so far:

• Police have confirmed that they are carrying out an ongoing manhunt for one of the two suspects in the Boston marathon bombing, and have sealed off a 20-block radius of a suburb of the city where the suspect is believed to be holed up.

• Ed Davis, the police commissioner of Boston, confirmed that they were trying to apprehend a man identified on Thursday night as Suspect Two. He was captured in video footage released to the public carrying a black backpack amid the marathon crowd shortly before the bombings and wearing a white baseball cap.

• Suspect Two was believed to be hiding somewhere within the Watertown area, at the end of a dramatic police chase in which explosive devices were thrown out of a Mercedes SUV that had been car-jacked from MIT. The police have confirmed that in the course of the night one MIT officer was killed and another officer injured.

• During the car chase, one of the two assailants - who police said was Suspect One from the marathon bombing photographs - was injured and later died at Beth Israel hospital.

• Watertown residents within the 20-block radius have been told to stay in their homes. They have also been told not to offer a lift to anyone in the streets in the vicinity of the area.

• Suspect Two is “considered armed and extremely dangerous”, Colonel Timothy Alben, head of Massachusetts state police, said. Davis had the following advice for Watertown residents: “Do not open your doors. Stay in your home. We believe this man to be a terrorist and we need to get him into custody.”

• Alben said Suspect Two was dressed in a grey, hoodie-type sweatshirt. He is a light-skinned, Caucasian male with longer brown curly hair.

Let us hope that no more innocent people get harmed.

Interesting in regard to our debate about visual data..

A Twitter user identifying himself as @jraske said the shootout occurred outside his Watertown house, on Laurel Street.

He tweeted photographs purporting to show a suspect car being searched by bomb disposal experts. The pictures are geotagged to Laurel Street.

The Middlesex County district attorney's office said earlier: "The suspects and police also exchanged gunfire in the area of Dexter and Laurel streets."

@ganulv: I pretty much agree and it is especially important to consider the time lag of the whole process. It takes considerable amounts of that precious ressources to get all those files, put them into the data base, filter them, sort them and look at them even if we have readily processable exact geolocation and time.

With the sort of manpower and ressources available to the case you will have many of them working at that. As I have written above CCTV should however be much more smoothly integrated into the system and be much easier to work with. bourbon makes the excellent point that those CCTVs are relative high up and placed&pointed with surveillance in mind so the guys working on that stream should be much more efficient and faster. Think of the work/time flow and critical path in a project.

As we have seen time can be incredibly important in this case to get the guys who did this. The vast amount of not so accessible visual data should help to slowly reconstruct the whole event and offer additional evidence, be it for a trial or not.

Dayuhan

04-19-2013, 12:28 PM

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/surviving-boston-bombing-suspect-named-as-dzhokhar-a-tsarnaev-following-shootout-that-left-other-suspect-and-police-officer-dead-8579362.html

The missing suspect has been identified by the Associated Press as 19-year-old Dzhokhar A Tsarnaev from Cambridge. NBC News is reporting that the dead suspect was his 20-year-old brother.

Both are reportedly from a Russian region near Chechnya and have been living in the US for at least a year.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev appears to been educated at at a Cambridge high school before receiving a scholarship to pursue higher education in 2011. His name appears on a list of 45 recipients of the Cambridge City Scholarship, handed to students from Cambridge Rindge and Latin School.

Much yet to be determined... did they arrive in the US with terrorism in mind or were they radicalized locally, were they working on behalf of an organization or did they come up with the plan on their own, etc.

jmm99

04-19-2013, 01:07 PM

that there were not a platoon of them, intent on a re-enactment of the Beslan School (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_hostage_crisis) slaughter.

Regards

Mike

Dayuhan

04-19-2013, 01:26 PM

More bits and pieces...

http://rt.com/news/chechnya-suspect-boston-bombing-110/

The older brother is now being reported as 26, not 20, and has apparently been in the US for some time. I'm sure in the next few days we'll know all too much about them. I would guess at this point that we're looking more at angry alienated young men finding the gospel according to jihad online rather than operatives of a Chechen Islamist conspiracy directed from abroad, but that's only a guess. More will be known soon enough.

Stan

04-19-2013, 02:05 PM

The Estonians think that the POTUS will support a Russian intervention into Chechnya now and even provide the correct munitions :D

slapout9

04-19-2013, 06:39 PM

that there were not a platoon of them, intent on a re-enactment of the Beslan School (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_hostage_crisis) slaughter.

Regards

Mike

Yes we should.

davidbfpo

04-19-2013, 07:23 PM

An article on the FBI Bomb Technicians, a good read; nice to see international co-operation given space:http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2013/04/19/fbi-bomb-technicians-virginia-pore-over-debris-and-shrapnel-building-forensics-case/U6u08MoBl9WUIIRe5dnBYJ/story.html

bourbon

04-19-2013, 07:47 PM

that there were not a platoon of them, intent on a re-enactment of the Beslan School (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_hostage_crisis) slaughter.

Regards

Mike
The majority of the Beslan hostage takers were Ingush, and Beslan is in North Ossetia. There was a nasty little conflict between the Ingush and Ossetians in 1992, and the Beslan school was used as an internment camp for the Ingush in Ossetia. Ingush women and children were held hostage in that same school gymnasium by Ossetian militia, the men and at least one newborn were executed.

The Beslan siege was a diabolical plot Shamil Basayev, that was in all likelihood designed to provoke another Ingush-Ossetian conflict. Because the massacre of children is so disturbing and incomprehensible, simplistic narratives about both the siege and “Chechens” are propagated.

The suspects here in Boston better hope the BPD/FBI catch them before the Chechen-community in Boston does. BPD/FBI will at least try to take them alive, the Chechen-community will handle things.....well, in the Chechen way.

Maeda Toshiie

04-20-2013, 04:52 AM

Elder brother dead, younger captured.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22228151

Not surprising that someone will declare that it is some government conspiracy that involves framing two young men...

I won't be so quick to declare that the threat is over. There is no telling whether there are more like minded people involved. I think the forensics work will be crucial in reconstructing how the pair obtained the materials for the bomb, and if external assistance was required for it.

Dayuhan

04-20-2013, 06:43 AM

Second suspect caught, in "serious condition" but alive. Will be interesting to see how the investigation of background and connections develops.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/us/second-boston-marathon-bombing-suspect-captured-after-massive-manhunt-1.1367226?page=1

omarali50

04-20-2013, 05:15 PM

morality, gratitude, ingratitude and other fun stuff

http://www.brownpundits.com/2013/04/19/a-history-of-ingratitude/

davidbfpo

04-20-2013, 07:06 PM

From the WaPo, by Anne Applebaum an article 'The connection between Boston and Europe’s train bombers', which ends with:
“I do not have a single American friend,” Tamerlan Tsarnaev reportedly said of himself. That’s the kind of statement that might have been made by a young Pakistani living in Coventry, or a young Algerian living in Paris.

We don’t expect to hear it from someone who grew up in Boston, a city that has taught generations of foreigners to become Americans in a country that likes to think of itself as a melting pot. But now it might be time to change our expectations. These terrorists are a lot less like the 9/11 attackers — or the Columbine attackers — and a lot more like the men known as the Tube bombers of London or the train bombers of Spain. Our response is going to have to be different — very different — as well.

Link:http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/anne-applebaum-boston-marathon-bombings-eerily-similar-to-european-attacks/2013/04/19/a04e1e2e-a923-11e2-a8e2-5b98cb59187f_story.html

carl

04-20-2013, 07:57 PM

bourbon

04-20-2013, 11:59 PM

carl

04-21-2013, 01:42 AM

Bourbon:

There is room for disagreement of course but in any event the article is half baked. Most of the words concern Chechnya. Neither one of those guys lived in Chechnya for very long. She implies they couldn't integrate into the community. The limited things I've read show they integrated quite well. She acts as if this is something new. This has been happening for years and years. The Fort Dix people, the Times Square bomber, Major Nidal, all those guys fit the same profile, not of people unable to assimilate, but of Muslims who got radicalized. In that sense she is barking up the wrong tree. Perhaps even the Puerto Ricans who tried to kill Truman were in the same boat (residents of the country who got radicalized), as were the various 60s and 70s radicals, as was McKinley's assassin.

All those people got angry for some reason or other and decided to kill or try to kill. And all could be shoehorned into the 'unhappy immigrant or immigrant's child' profile. But they weren't, because it doesn't fit and it still doesn't. Their motivations were attributed to other things. This isn't anything like Europe with its Algerian suburbs the police can't go into. The fact that immigrants assimilate very will into the US is so blindingly obvious that we don't see it anymore.

Ms. Applebaum ended her article with the statement that this time was different and our response should be different. That may not be blame America first, we can disagree on that, but it sure as heck is a statement born of great ignorance of even the recent past.

slapout9

04-21-2013, 05:52 AM

Ms. Applebaum is leading the charge in the predictable "What did we do to bring this upon ourselves?" onslaught of articles. Geesh a couple of guys commit mass murder and maiming and its our fault. But I guess that is how some members of the media, maybe a lot of members, make their living, blame the Americans.

Black hat saying he didn't have any American friends is what black hat says about himself. Woe is him. There were apparently two black hats, the one before he became a jerk and the one after. Jerks don't generally have a lot of friends.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/04/20/178112198/the-tsarnaev-brothers-what-we-know-about-the-boston-bombing-suspects?ft=1&f=1001

http://www.wnyc.org/articles/wnyc-news/2013/apr/19/coed-remembers-tamerlan-tsarnaev/

It is no surprise the after black hat didn't have friends, if in fact he didn't.

Ms. Applebaum also didn't do full research about Beslan. (see Bourbon's post above.)

We should have done what was talked about briefly after 911 and that was to close our borders to any immigration for 10 years. And start deporting anybody left that doesn't swear total and complete allegiance to the USA. Post a very large Peace Bond and surrender their first born male child...ok maybe that is a little bit to much but we should stop all immigration for 10 years, should look at the Peace Bond idea to especially from Muslim countries.

davidbfpo

04-21-2013, 11:42 AM

We all now know it was a citizen's call that led to the second suspect's hiding place being identified, so I was interested to read this in a WaPo summary:
(Boston Police Commissioner Edward) Davis said he was told that facial-recognition software did not identify the men in the ball caps. The technology came up empty even though both Tsarnaevs’ images exist in official databases: Dzhokhar had a Massachusetts driver’s license; the brothers had legally immigrated; and Tamerlan had been the subject of some FBI investigation.

Plus:
Once the photos of the men in caps were made public Thursday, the FBI tip line filled with calls, including one from the brothers’ aunt, who provided her nephews’ identity, according to federal law enforcement officials.

Link:http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/inside-the-investigation-of-the-boston-marathon-bombing/2013/04/20/19d8c322-a8ff-11e2-b029-8fb7e977ef71_story_3.html

davidbfpo

04-21-2013, 12:00 PM

Carl in his response to Anne Applebaum's article commented:
This isn't anything like Europe with its Algerian suburbs the police can't go into.

I don't know about the French suburbs, often mainly North African around Paris and other high density, mainly non-indigenous suburbs across Europe, but know something about those here in urban England.

The police here can go into such areas, it is whether they are effective once there in their law enforcement role and in gaining public support (usually referred to as trust & confidence in the UK). There is a big difference between responding to emergency calls alongside undertaking overt 'normal' criminal investigations and the often covert way of investigating terrorism, organised crime and drugs. The differences are not religious or party political or ethnic, but a mixture.

In my limited time with US LE in urban areas it was quite obvious in some urban areas LE had access, little overt public support and could easily be seen as an 'occupying' power. A topic SWC have discussed before.

Now back to Boston. Amidst all the media reporting and I have read only a little I have yet to see a report(s) that US LE had been alerted by the suspect's family, friends and community about their changing character. Yes that is a big issue itself, for example do families notice and want to tell others?

Maybe that is what Anne Applebaum is talking about:
Our response is going to have to be different — very different — as well.

slapout9

04-21-2013, 06:28 PM

Link to zenpundit and his excellent series on the Boston attack.

http://zenpundit.com/

Kiwigrunt

04-22-2013, 12:19 AM

US gun law bigger threat than terrorists (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10878901)

Unfortunately this irrational behaviour is not limited to the US. Another article in the same paper is titled: ‘Heightened security at London Marathon’. This is the same London that the author mentioned here:

But Londoners, who endured IRA (the Irish Republican Army - the paramilitary group who fought for Northern Irish independence from the UK) terror threats for years, might be forgiven for thinking that America over-reacted just a tad to the goings-on in Boston.

That other article starts with:

The London Marathon takes place amid a heightened police presence following the Boston Marathon bomb attacks…

So how much of this is real versus media hype? Was the heightened presence a real attempt at increasing the probability of thwarting a similar ‘terrorist’ action? Was it an attempt to satisfy the ‘something must be done’ syndrome? But mostly, what was security in London like during those IRA days? Is our true approach to security different now from what it was then, or is our perception of it different? I was a child at the time so my memory of it is irrelevant.

Here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_hostage_Netherlands_1977) is one of the more interesting terrorist actions in Dutchland in that same period. Again, I have no recollection of how that affected our attitude, fear, and behaviour towards the ‘threat’ of violence and terrorism.

carl

04-22-2013, 02:20 AM

If you go back 100 years you can see the same type of thing happening, disenchanted people in various parts of the world blowing up innocents. They were the Anarchists. People calling themselves Anarchists killed a US President, set off a bomb on Wall Street killing dozens, knocked off a Tsar etc etc etc.

This is an article I found about the Anarchists. It was written in 2009. It could have been written yesterday.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/blood-rage--history-the-worlds-first-terrorists-1801195.html

The article contains these words about the motivations of the Anarchists then and the Jihadists now:
But neither had a very clear picture of what the world would look like after the smoke from their bombs had cleared. Their visions of the future were vague: both no-state and the caliphate were hazy hope-dreams. Below and beneath them, there were deep structural similarities.

Both groups believed their violence was justified by the larger illegitimate state violence they witnessed as young men.

They justified their attacks to themselves by claiming they were trying to give the wealthy, or the West, a taste of how "their people" felt. Yet in both movements, intriguingly, it was largely middle class intellectuals who turned to violence.

There is a lot more in the article. I was impressed. What we are seeing doesn't seem to be all that new in its essence. It may be new that the impulse is being given a slightly, only slightly, more coherent political direction by groups like AQ this time around.

One thing I noted during the manhunt for white hat was they got nowhere until they told the people of Boston they could move around, then white hat got made seemingly within minutes. So the authorities in Boston, by locking down the city, deprived themselves of millions of eyes to help in the search. When they availed themselves of those eyes things went much better.

I know why they did it, they were afraid that white hat had a suicide belt and they didn't want to chance it. But they could find him until they chanced it. That is something that will have to be considered in the future.

carl

04-22-2013, 02:26 AM

Now back to Boston. Amidst all the media reporting and I have read only a little I have yet to see a report(s) that US LE had been alerted by the suspect's family, friends and community about their changing character. Yes that is a big issue itself, for example do families notice and want to tell others?

There was a guy on the Fox News Sunday show today that made a point about false positives. He said that if you pursue every thing that comes along, you will end up tracking thousands of people who would have done nothing. The main point he and other guests made was that sometimes, there are things you aren't going to stop. Perfection isn't possible.

KenWats

04-22-2013, 12:49 PM

MattClimbs717

04-22-2013, 06:25 PM

But Londoners, who endured IRA (the Irish Republican Army - the paramilitary group who fought for Northern Irish independence from the UK) terror threats for years, might be forgiven for thinking that America over-reacted just a tad to the goings-on in Boston.

Aside from the fact that this author is wrong about how the Brits are reacting to Boston (as you pointed out), the comparison falls flat for another reason: The IRA's bombings in London were always preceded by a phone warning to ensure that authorities evacuated civilians from the blast area. Jihadists and their ilk aren't the same way; civilian deaths are the intent, not just collateral, in their bombings. So I think Americans can be forgiven for not feeling the same way about them that the Brtis felt about the IRA.

(Of course, after the 2005 bombings in London, I imagine that most Brits, contrary to what this guy claims, actually do feel the same way about radical Islamic terrorism.)

Firn

04-22-2013, 06:37 PM

Here's a question that I haven't seen a lot of speculation on. These two young men were able to make at least 3, and likely more, homemade bombs that all went off as designed. Judging by the ineffectiveness of other bombmakers (unibomber took a little while to figure it out, the guy who tried to blow up Times Square got it wrong, and others), that's a pretty good record. So, where'd he get this expertise from? Or did he have the expertise? I'm a smart guy, and a smart guy who worked with explosives (in a limited capacity)...I don't think I could have pulled it off, or would have without a few test shots. Even military grade stuff doesn't always work as desired.

The older one studied engineering, as far as I know. I think a key factor of those quite 'efficient' bombs might have been his long stay in his home region. Without knowing much it could be a good place to learn the craft and test your knowledge if you know the right guys and if you come with the right intentions...

Just a potential facet of his long visit, among others like political, family and religious ones.

Stan

04-23-2013, 03:22 PM

Here's a question that I haven't seen a lot of speculation on. These two young men were able to make at least 3, and likely more, homemade bombs that all went off as designed. Judging by the ineffectiveness of other bombmakers (unibomber took a little while to figure it out, the guy who tried to blow up Times Square got it wrong, and others), that's a pretty good record. So, where'd he get this expertise from? Or did he have the expertise? I'm a smart guy, and a smart guy who worked with explosives (in a limited capacity)...I don't think I could have pulled it off, or would have without a few test shots. Even military grade stuff doesn't always work as desired.

Ken,
Most of us that know don't talk about it.

The pressure cooker has been around for at least 13 years in Greece, India and France. They are not expensive and by no means even remotely remarkable. What's inside besides all the fragmentation ? Fuel (sensitizers) and an oxygen source (oxidizers) and voila :eek:

The great thing about a pressure cooker vs a pipe bomb, is you don't have to do anything other than close the lid :D

davidbfpo

04-24-2013, 09:48 PM

A commentary by Raffaello Pantucci, now @ RUSI, whose has written on 'lone wolves' before and this point is well made:
The key conclusion for security agencies is that such terrorist cells are notoriously difficult to uncover prior to event. Some work can be done in targeted public information campaigns aimed at chemical companies, storage firms or other industries that might be conduits for individuals to obtain transformative material for homemade explosives. This will help give authorities leads like those that led to Khalid Aldawsari's detention.

The case referred to in Texas I'd forgotten:
...Aldawsari attempted to purchase chemicals from the Carolina Biological Supply company, using a commercial shipping company to have them delivered to his home in Lubbock, Texas. Both the chemical company and the shipping company flagged the purchase as one of concern to authorities, leading to an investigation by the FBI that uncovered Aldawsari as a loner terrorist cell building a bomb whose diary was full of menacing jihadist ideas. He was convicted in November last year and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Link:http://www.rusi.org/analysis/commentary/ref:C5177DD26E45E0/#.UXgKJikPxU1.twitter

davidbfpo

04-24-2013, 10:08 PM

I am sure the source is genuine, the GAO, but the link is to the "left":
Under current laws, if a background check reveals that your name is on the national terrorism watch list, you’re still free to walk out of a gun dealership with a firearm in your hands — as long as you don’t have a criminal or mental health record.

Data from the Government Accountability Office show that between 2004 and 2010, people on terrorism watch lists tried to buy guns and explosives more than 1,400 times. They succeeded in more than 90 percent of those cases, or 1,321 times.

Link:http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/04/24/1912281/terrorist-guns-gap/

KenWats

04-25-2013, 04:07 PM

Ken,
Most of us that know don't talk about it.

The pressure cooker has been around for at least 13 years in Greece, India and France. They are not expensive and by no means even remotely remarkable. What's inside besides all the fragmentation ? Fuel (sensitizers) and an oxygen source (oxidizers) and voila :eek:

The great thing about a pressure cooker vs a pipe bomb, is you don't have to do anything other than close the lid :D

Stan,

It looks like more information about the construction and components of the devices are coming out now.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/against_bombers_emptied_firework_uDZZV52E33jEe63af QsseK

It still doesn't change the fact that were I in their shoes, I'd want to test my design before kicking it off. It's a lot of trouble and risk to end up like the Times Square bomber. Then again, I'm an experienced manufacturing engineer, so some of that is probably fruit of my own experience at work. Never fails, anything we don't prototype/plan meticulously goes horribly wrong on the first try, doesn't matter how similar it is to something else we already make. I suppose smarter minds than mine are working on the test shot angle.

Stan

04-25-2013, 05:26 PM

Stan,

It looks like more information about the construction and components of the devices are coming out now.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/against_bombers_emptied_firework_uDZZV52E33jEe63af QsseK

It still doesn't change the fact that were I in their shoes, I'd want to test my design before kicking it off. It's a lot of trouble and risk to end up like the Times Square bomber. Then again, I'm an experienced manufacturing engineer, so some of that is probably fruit of my own experience at work. Never fails, anything we don't prototype/plan meticulously goes horribly wrong on the first try, doesn't matter how similar it is to something else we already make. I suppose smarter minds than mine are working on the test shot angle.

Hey Ken,
We generally build five identical devices. One we blow and the rest we let students render safe with the equipment available.

Based on what we have (not the article) there is evidence that those two Delta Hotels did do some testing. Perhaps not for the very reasons you would though :rolleyes:

They would have needed around 10 pounds to do what they did and so the fireworks angle won't work for many obvious reasons. Carl earlier in this thread explained just how easy you can mail order 50 pounds.

Most of the examples we have of dumb criminals would indicate that there were not smarter minds than yours at work :D

carl

04-26-2013, 04:13 AM

Stan (and anybody else):

Do you think the penchant for making and using bombs is a weakness for these guys? The evil genius of 9-11 was the novel use of what was there. Most of the plots since then involve bombs though.

jcustis

04-26-2013, 05:44 AM

The next event could just as easily be the result of an arson approach. A Camelbak's-worth of acceleration in the right confined space, mixed in with the right number and age of victims, could outstrip the effect of Boston, or Newtown, or Aurora, so fast some would be gasping for breath.

It's almost a bizarre twist that the fascination with things that go boom may have actually reduced the potential toll of lives over time.

jmm99

04-26-2013, 06:03 AM

from an "anybody else". :D

9/11 used your (Carl's) airliners as cruise missiles. Diabolically clever.

I (as a chemist once upon a time, but long out of the game) look on bombs as ranging from the simple to the complex. We'll eventually see what the Boston bomb-making program was; but, to my not especially qualified estimate, they were on the simple end of the scale. BTW: I've no expertise in bombs;my expertise (at a low level) was how to make mammals very, very sick.

Anyhow, IEDs have been with us for a long time - in Vietnam, booby traps, etc. So, negat on them being a strategic weakness; they are part of the "new normal" (and the "old normal"). BTW: they can be traced, etc.; but that is Stan's expertise, not mine.

My own fears (somewhat similar to Jon's) will be a "terr action platoon", well equipped, well trained and extremely motivated - intent on explosions, fires and well-executed shooting - as in Beslan.

Regards,

Mike

jcustis

04-26-2013, 06:16 AM

For a bit, I planned on retiring and moving into the campus security realm. I was also looking into a master's degree in security management, as work in that area fits very well into what I have done the past 20 years.

The work of securing a college campus is a daunting feat, and in light of the tug and pull between resources, threats, and vulnerabilities, I cringe at how easy it would be for a determined team of just a few BGs to murder a whole lot of people.

With my eldest headed to university soon, I find it very hard to not red team the campuses we've visited, and the one she will ultimately attend. Personal protection measures become paramount among the masses. :(

jmm99

04-26-2013, 07:38 AM

carl

04-26-2013, 05:37 PM

How am I going to put this? Forgive me if I am unclear but I think we need to get away from the idea of the gov securing the people perfectly and more toward an idea that we are going to secure each other and accept that that will be imperfect.

It is impossible to for the authorities to protect a passive population at all times from everything. There just aren't the numbers available to do that. But if the people are made part of the equation, things will work much better. Let me give two examples of what I mean.

In Boston they locked down the city and thousands of militarized police spent hours and hours marching around looking for one shot up guy and they couldn't find him. Then they let the people out of their cages and the guy got made in apparently minutes. The 'we'll take care of you' idea didn't work. The 'everybody take care of each other' idea did.

The same thing with the 9-11 hijackings. The critical thing that allowed the first three to work was airline anti-hijacking training as it existed at that time. The crews were taught to cooperate with the hijackers and actively discourage the pax from doing anything. That worked brilliantly for the hijackers. When the pax figured out what was happening (blazing fast), the hijackers couldn't keep the airplane and now they can't take an airplane. The pax will jump them and kill them. The reinforced cockpit doors are there to give the pax time to realize what is happening and attack and now the cabin crews are to encourage the attack. Pilots with pistols make it even harder for the bad guys. The gov and the TSA will never admit it but the thing that keeps planes from being hijacked now are the pax, the people themselves assisted by the crews, not the gov.

Mike mentioned a Mumbai type crew wreaking havoc. Maybe my idea will work with that too. Where I used to work if something happened and the people figured we needed help, they poured out to help us. It was just a matter of directing them. In that place too, there were a lot of cops in overlapping agencies and all were well armed. Nowadays many of those cops will have been vets of Iraq and Afghanistan. They would all turn out and converge on the problem in my view. If they needed help the people would be eager to assist, and many of them would have been deployed overseas. It might be as simple a matter as doubling your force by telling a citizen to stick with this officer and do what he does. They would.

I hope I have explained this clearly but the main idea is we can secure ourselves, not perfectly, but adequately and do it better if we go more toward looking at the people as part of the force so to speak and not just a bunch of passives to be guarded.

carl

04-26-2013, 05:44 PM

Think of Michigan Tech (http://www.mtu.edu/) (a great basic sci and engineering school - nuts & bolts, etc. !); although it seems the choice is already made for the eldest. Maybe, the next one. ;)

Regards

Mike

The area in which Mich Tech is very pretty and very peaceful. Surprisingly, winters aren't that hard to take up there because they have so much practice handling it. And perhaps Mike is trying to help the Tech students by encouraging daughters to go there because when I was hanging around the area, many years ago, Tech had the rep of being short of women.

slapout9

04-26-2013, 06:39 PM

jmm99

04-26-2013, 07:23 PM

I'm told (by Tech's stats) that the male to female ratio in 1960 was 22:1 :); but has hovered at 3:1 since the 1980s :(. The latter would not be atypical for an engineering school. Tech does have a nice campus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campus_of_Michigan_Technological_University), which a 2011 Reader's Digest survey (http://www.rd.com/images/content/2008/0802/College-Safety-Survey-Results.pdf) ranked third (behind John Hopkins and Northeastern) in campus safety.

I'd have to include myself lining up with Slap's "Minuteman" concept. However, the "Powers That Are" are Weberians (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber) - violence (even when used for good ends) is the monopoly of the state. They would say we are throwbacks to Teddy Roosevelt and the "Gunfighter Nation (http://www.amazon.com/Gunfighter-Nation-Frontier-Twentieth-Century-America/dp/0806130318)" (good book, BTW).

Regards

Mike

Firn

04-26-2013, 09:23 PM

Our founding Fathers new how to beat terrorist and anybody else for that matter and that is the citizen soldier...... the Minuteman. A basic draft should be reinstated for both men and women to be trained in basic ASSAULT WEAPONS and small unit tactics and the legal use of force. And then just like Switzerland they should be ISSUED Assault Weapons and REQUIRED to keep them in their home and vehicle and be able to respond at a minutes notice to eithr support LE or act in until they can arrive.

While I'm not that sure if such a concept is helpful in such instances of terrorism I never did understand the following laws. I just never could.

I'm talking about the bundle of laws which ban civilians in France and Italy from the use of 'military' calibers like the 9x19 or 5.56x45. In Italy you can easily sidestep the rifle issue by buying a .308 or .556 but the French are a bit more strict about that.

Both countries supported to some extent the liberation of their country with partisan groups which had to rely to a good deal on civilian weapons beside their service rifles as well as the captured and airdropped stuff. Common sense would dictate that at least 50-40 years ago you would set incentives for civilians to buy their legal guns in exactly those military calibers, by given them a tax break on those or/and putting a higher tax on other calibers*. In any case you want do pretty much everything but ban them.

Of course this is all just the simple hardware side and I have ignored the organisational and strategic side. It is all the more surprising if we consider the Gladio stuff in Italy. Maybe the political powers did really fear the fifth commy column. That would be the only answer which would make some sense :D

*A more general approach would extent that to certain specific weapon types and especially interfaces for magazines, optics, muzzle brakes/suppressors and so forth. Some of the 'bad stuff' like larger mags might get stored for the time being. The Swiss went of course down their own path with their service rifle & and the laws around it.

Stan

04-26-2013, 09:39 PM

Hei Mikka !

... We'll eventually see what the Boston bomb-making program was; but, to my not especially qualified estimate, they were on the simple end of the scale.

Being slightly more informed, the evidence suggests rank amatuer class Sierra with perhaps some help from an experienced local.

Anyhow, IEDs have been with us for a long time - in Vietnam, booby traps, etc. So, negat on them being a strategic weakness; they are part of the "new normal" (and the "old normal"). BTW: they can be traced, etc.; but that is Stan's expertise, not mine.

People much smarter than I are indeed working on it. Yep, very little is new, and norm seems to be the way we deal with it. My own thoughts are they will be traced to a homegrown personality and not just one.

My own fears (somewhat similar to Jon's) will be a "terr action platoon", well equipped, well trained and extremely motivated - intent on explosions, fires and well-executed shooting - as in Beslan.

Regards,

Mike

The trial of McVeigh comes to mind herein. No shortage of fruit cakes with a serious beef with the government. How many people were really involved ? Some say more than 20 ! Not a platoon, but something to be concerned about.

Dayuhan

04-27-2013, 12:12 AM

Being slightly more informed, the evidence suggests rank amatuer class Sierra with perhaps some help from an experienced local.

Every time we've had one of these plots fail or be busted, somebody's pointed out that sooner or later one will come along who isn't completely inept. It happened.

My own thoughts are they will be traced to a homegrown personality and not just one.

My guess is about the same, but people who really want to see a foreign organization or a CIA false-flag operation in the picture will not be dissuaded. There seem to be a disturbing number of them out there.

The trial of McVeigh comes to mind herein. No shortage of fruit cakes with a serious beef with the government. How many people were really involved ? Some say more than 20 ! Not a platoon, but something to be concerned about.

The more people involved, the more likely they are to be caught before the plot gets off the ground. I suspect that the presence of a natural accomplice in the form of a brother was one reason why the Boston plot stayed secret... less need to reach out looking for others of like mind when there's someone right at hand.

jcustis

04-27-2013, 03:31 AM

There are so many boxes of Reynolds aluminum wrap coming out right now over this and Newtown that it's surprising those same loonies even know how to use a computer.

jmm99

04-27-2013, 06:33 AM

in local Finglish, it goes as "ruggaboos" - roughly "tough guys" (may be "good, bad or in between"; but, uniformally of no bull$hit, with calluses on hands, and often feet).

My only caveat is that, among all the chaff (alum hats, etc.), one may find a bad guy linked to a bad or badder group. The issue is "materiality", which I've recently discussed here (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=146056&postcount=8).

What is Material vs What is Relevant ? Millions of facts, people, places, etc., may affect the future to some extent - and, hence, are "relevant". Those that weigh heavily on the future are "material". What weighs heavily (substantially, etc.) tends to be subjective. We also must confront the "butterfly flapping its wings" argument - which raises Cain with judging materiality. A variant of the "butterfly flapping" is the "1% possible nuclear attack" - the risk is small, the consequences are huge.

Regards

Mike

PS: I've been currently tied up with updating my computer network - finding out that I'm usually as smart as I thought - but, sometimes, very dumb. Actually, that is good; it reminds me that, at heart, I'm a Tech injunneer. :)

Dayuhan

04-27-2013, 11:06 PM

My only caveat is that, among all the chaff (alum hats, etc.), one may find a bad guy linked to a bad or badder group.

Entirely possible, of course, though as always "links" have to be looked at carefully to determine their nature and extent. Saw this today...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/officials-fbi-believes-it-knows-misha-but-sees-no-link-to-boston-bombing/2013/04/27/aabc30f8-af81-11e2-b59e-adb43da03a8a_story.html

Officials: FBI believes it knows ‘Misha’ but sees no link to Boston bombing

WASHINGTON — U.S. officials say investigators have found no evidence that a conservative Muslim friend of Tamerlan Tsarnaev had any connection to the Boston Marathon bombing.

Of course this guy could have had a major impact on the development of the religious and ideological mess that drove the bombings without having any direct connection to the bombings themselves.

I wonder what will come out of the investigation of the Dagestan trip... I'm sure the Russians will be unusually cooperative and in fact quite eager to advance the possibility that Chechen groups are attacking the US. The truth of that of course remains to be seen. I can certainly see how local exposure might increase radicalism and raise the idea of terror as a device, less sure that an organized Chechen or North Caucasus Islamist group would deliberately target the US. It would seem pretty pointless on a strategic level, though there are fringe groups out there not known for deep strategic thought.

I know people who are desperately hoping an Iranian connection will emerge so they can accuse the US of having staged the attack as an excuse for war with Iran... there will never be enough foil to go around.

davidbfpo

04-27-2013, 11:31 PM

First, the clarity. An article on the FBI investigation by a ret'd FBI agent, written before the 'smoke' landed:http://allthingshls.com/2013/04/27/did-the-fbi-bungle-the-tsnarnaev-investigation/

The Russian FSB's role was always going to be controversial, but this AP report does not help:
Russian authorities secretly recorded a telephone conversation in 2011 in which one of the Boston bombing suspects vaguely discussed jihad with his mother, officials said Saturday, days after the U.S. government finally received details about the call.

Link:http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_289563/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=IBuuqOYn

Just found some more clarity SWC's own CWOT (Clint Watts, ex-FBI plus) has a FPRI article:http://www.fpri.org/geopoliticus/2013/04/detecting-radicalization-and-recruitment-boston-bombers

Too late for once to read, so a comment another day.;)

bourbon

04-28-2013, 02:12 AM

As if this all weren’t strange enough - Graham Fuller turns out to have once been Uncle Ruslan's father in-law.

Former CIA officer: ‘Absurd’ to link uncle of Boston suspects, Agency (http://backchannel.al-monitor.com/index.php/2013/04/5090/former-cia-officer-absurd-to-link-uncle-of-boston-suspects-agency-over-daughters-brief-marriage/), by Laura Rozen. The Back Channel, April 27, 2013.

Graham Fuller’s daughter, Samantha A. Fuller, was married to Ruslan Tsarnaev (now Tsarni) in the mid-1990s, and divorced in 1999, according to North Carolina public records. The elder Fuller had retired from the agency almost a decade before the brief marriage.

“Samantha was married to Ruslan Tsarnaev (Tsarni) for 3-4 years, and they lived in Bishkek for one year where Samantha was working for Price Waterhouse on privatization projects,” Fulller, a former CIA officer in Turkey and vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council, told Al-Monitor by email Saturday. “They also lived in our house in [Maryland] for a year or so and they were divorced in 1999, I believe.”

“I, of course, retired from CIA in 1987 and had moved on to working as a senior political scientist for RAND,” Fuller continued.

carl

05-02-2013, 01:07 PM

davidbfpo

05-03-2013, 08:00 PM

Moderator's Note

There is a thread 'Explosion at Boston Marathon', with 149 posts and 4,798 views to date; it remains separate at the moment:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=17930

davidbfpo

05-03-2013, 08:12 PM

I always wonder about the contribution of WaPo's David Ignatius, who appears to be very close to parts of the US government and this RCP article is no exception.

It starts with a commentary on the DNI's testimony on Boston and he writes that:
Given the limits on government surveillance of homegrown extremists, what's the strategy for preventing domestic terror? Basically, it focuses on outreach to Muslim and other communities to get their help in monitoring and disrupting mobilization for terrorist activities.

(He ends with) Analysts say talking to Muslim communities -- through Community Awareness Briefings at mosques, community centers and other meeting places -- is the most effective tool for preventing home-grown Islamist extremism. If Muslim families feel part of a larger American community, they have a greater stake in monitoring and preventing violence. That's not Dr. Phil talking, but some of the nation's hard-nosed counterterrorism specialists.

Clapper and his analysts have concluded that the right answer to home-grown plots isn't police-state surveillance but good community policing. This won't stop the occasional plot by people who get radicalized, like the Tsarnaevs, but as one analyst noted, "it's not likely to spike into a mass phenomenon."

Link:http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/05/03/the_limits_to_surveillance_118241.html

I suspect a few interested parties, notably the IT providers and other contractors, will wonder if their hi-tech approach will be so generously funded.

Dayuhan

05-04-2013, 09:32 PM

Interesting, given the upthread speculation on the selection of the target and the date...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/boston-suspect-says-bombings-were-intially-planned-for-4th-of-july/2013/05/02/dcfd63be-b38e-11e2-9a98-4be1688d7d84_story.html

Officials: Boston suspect says bombings were initially planned for 4th of July

The surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing told the FBI he and his brother initially considered committing suicide bombings and planned attacking on the Fourth of July at Boston’s large celebration along the Charles River, according to two law enforcement officials.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, said that he and his brother, Tamerlan, 26, decided to launch their attack earlier because they completed building the pressure-cooker bombs more quickly than they expected, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

Tsarnaev said they constructed the bombs in his brother’s Cambridge, Mass., apartment and considered several targets after driving around Boston in a car.

Lesson being that the selection of a target and a date can easily be over-analyzed and assigned significance that it doesn't actually have.

Stan

05-05-2013, 06:03 PM

This is a report done by the NYPD in 2007 that seems to cover the Boston Marathon killers quite nicely.

http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/nypd-intelligence-division-the-homegrown-threat

I heard about yesterday on the radio and read it last night. It is extremely good. To do the report no justice it says these guys go through four stages, pre-radicaliztion, self-identification, indoctrination and jihadiztion. Those four stages also involve some generally common patterns, like getting thrown out or leaving a mosque. From the little I know of older brother, things seem to fit.

Carl,
We were taught there are three stages:

The weakened stage
The preparation stage
The violent stage

On the other hand, earlier last month we had Topless Jihad (http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/04/femen-stages-a-topless-jihad/100487/) :)

... Lesson being that the selection of a target and a date can easily be over-analyzed and assigned significance that it doesn't actually have.

Good that ! A wise old NCO in the early 70s told me strange people can't keep schedules :D

davidbfpo

05-05-2013, 06:26 PM

One of the better comments on the, assumed, radicalization of the two suspects by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross:http://thewasat.wordpress.com/2013/05/04/notes-on-the-tsarnaevs-radicalization/

Why this was written:
I wanted to introduce these radicalization models because they will help us to think about the points that follow. But my goal in this entry is not to discuss the merits or shortcomings of existing radicalization models. Rather, I want to outline some aspects of this case that strike me as significant.

This point is often lost in post-attack discussions:
.. it is worth noting that there is a difference between someone holding extremist views and someone being likely to undertake violence.

The author's own website:http://www.daveedgr.com/ and on Wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daveed_Gartenstein-Ross

jcustis

05-05-2013, 06:42 PM

Stan, it is funny that you had that book-marked...

slapout9

05-06-2013, 06:14 AM

On the other hand, earlier last month we had Topless Jihad (http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/04/femen-stages-a-topless-jihad/100487/) :)

You done good Stan!!!!!!That is fantastic.....I am serious!!!!!That is exactly what needs to happen. Jihad Jane against these fanatic sexually repressed bastards. Remember a long time ago I said we need the equivalent of an Islamic Joan of Arc...may just have found it.

Stan

05-06-2013, 02:34 PM

Stan, it is funny that you had that book-marked...

Geez, Jon ! I just surfed on in Bro :D

carl

05-09-2013, 04:18 AM

slapout9

05-09-2013, 07:03 PM

Slap and David:

Did you guys ever get to work a protest like that? I never did. Life ain't fair.

If the photos were representative of the women taking part in those protests, I noticed that it was mostly just women who looked good topless that participated. Female vanity trumps conviction I guess...and I approve.

carl, no I never did get to do anything like that:(.

But I am deadly serious about this being an excellent way to fight the Jihad, it is an excellent example of what I mean by SBW (slapout based warfare, oooops!:rolleyes: I mean systems based warfare) This group of ladies is attacking the entire system, they are attacking the fundamental belief systems that binds the whole enemy system together.

It SUBVERTS it destroys loyalty to the primary systems of belief and that is what we have to do at the highest level if we ever want to win. We should make a million copies of this film and distribute it world wide. The President should invite them to the WH and give the medal of freedom to each of these brave soldiers and then he should disband the department of homeland silliness and give the entire budget to this Joan Allah Brigade. They would win in 6 months!

davidbfpo

05-09-2013, 07:33 PM

Dayuhan

05-12-2013, 12:31 AM

Ongoing discussion of what the Russians did or didn't provide. Have to wonder if the omissions and failures to respond were deliberate or simply a lethargic bureaucracy dealing with what would have seemed a fairly minor matter:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324244304578475300856008018.html

I also wonder how people would have reacted prior to the bombings if they'd discovered that US agencies were investigating people purely on the basis of information provided by the Russians. Russian actions in Chechnya have been perceived in the US as fairly heavy handed, with some reason; would Americans have been entirely happy to see what could have been perceived as US support for Russian pursuit of individuals supporting Chechen nationalist causes?

davidbfpo

05-13-2013, 05:34 PM

A somewhat different viewpoint, by a American anthropology academic:http://www.opendemocracy.net/david-w-montgomery/avoiding-responsibility-in-boston-marathon-bombing

A couple of passages:
Lost in the move to connect Islam and the Tsarnaev’s Chechen heritage with terrorism is the role of schools and communities in the United States in addressing the alienation that led the brothers to committing such acts of violence.

All too easily forgotten:
There were, after all, three days of the city functioning between the Monday bombing and the Friday lockdown.

davidbfpo

05-15-2013, 11:33 PM

In a surprising move, Texas House and Senate budget negotiators have agreed to wipe out funding for the Department of Public Safety’s fusion center (one of seven in Texas), part of a nationwide intelligence gathering initiative that has generated controversy in Washington.

If the House and Senate affirm the change, it could make Texas the first state to pull the rug from under one of the statewide fusion operations that began under a Department of Homeland Security offensive that has been criticized for wasting taxpayers’ money.

Link:http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news/budget-conferees-vote-not-to-fund-dps-fusion-cente/nXrPx/?icmp=statesman_internallink_invitationbox_apr2013 _statesmanstubtomystatesman_launch

Responses via Twitter by an ex-FBI agent:
Absent access to classified USIC intel, or dedicated intel collectors, Fusion Centers are just crime data and lead aggregators.....Lack of clearance to the intel data is a big issue with Fusion Centers. Without clearance, there is no real fusion

For reference there is a seperate, historical thread on fusion centers, which is closed now this thread covers more than fusion:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=277

davidbfpo

05-29-2013, 01:15 PM

I thought this academic paper in International Security (Autumn 2012) had appeared on SWC before, but a search just suggests not. 'The Terrorism Delusion: America’s Overwrought Response to September 11 by John Mueller and Mark G. Stewart:http://politicalscience.osu.edu/faculty/jmueller//absisfin.pdf

It is worth reading.

davidbfpo

06-01-2013, 10:47 PM

A FP 'Argument' on the Director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, a retired agent; sub-titled:
How Robert Mueller transformed -- for better and for worse -- the FBI into a counterterrorism agency.

Interesting to note the critique that the FBI (and others) looked away from 'white collar' crime, in particular mortgage fraud, which damaged the USA more than terrorism. A theme IIRC we have touched before, although maybe not so explicitly.

Link:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/05/31/mueller_fbi_legacy_counterterrorism?page=full

davidbfpo

08-26-2013, 08:16 PM

The work of NYPD has appeared here before, especially its intelligence gathering activities. Now the New Yorker Magazine adds a report, which ends with:
Regardless of the outcome, the NYPD’s programs are likely to join waterboarding, secret prisons, and NSA wiretapping as emblems of post-9/11 America, when security justified many practices that would not have been tolerated before.

Link:http://nymag.com/news/features/nypd-demographics-unit-2013-9/index6.html

Curious that one insider began to wonder why the best restaurants featured all too often on expense forms, then the Zavi plot found the programme had nothing to offer.

AdamG

10-12-2013, 04:22 PM

Nothing to see here. Move along.

More than 10,000 people in Arkansas were dumped into a blackout Sunday following an attack on that state’s electric grid, the FBI said today, the third such attack in recent weeks. In August, a major transmission line in the region, around Cabot, Ark., was deliberately cut.

The FBI said that two power poles had been intentionally cut in Lonoke County on Sunday, resulting in the outage.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2013/10/07/weekend-attacks-on-arkansas-electric-grid-leave-10000-without-power-you-should-have-expected-u-s/

AdamG

10-15-2013, 03:27 PM

Kid stuff. Nothing to see here.

LOS ANGELES -- Three more dry ice bombs were found near a plane at the international terminal of Los Angeles International Airport late Monday, prompting a major search by airport police, the LAPD bomb squad and the FBI.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/15/20970183-more-dry-ice-bombs-found-at-lax-terminal-searched-by-fbi?lite

Nervous passengers, nothing more.

The pilots say the most recent dry-run occurred on Flight 1880 on September 2. The flight left Reagan National Airport in Washington D.C. and headed to Orlando International.
Crew members say that shortly after takeoff, a group of four “Middle Eastern” men caused a commotion.
The witnesses claim one of the men ran from his seat in coach, toward the flight deck door. He made a hard left and entered the forward bathroom “for a considerable length of time.”
While he was in there, the other three men proceeded to move about the cabin, changing seats, opening overhead bins, and “generally making a scene.” They appeared to be trying to occupy and distract the flight attendants.
The 10 News Investigators contacted both US Airways and the Transportation Security Administration both confirmed the incident. US Airways says it won’t discuss the details of security measures, but that it works closely with authorities.
The TSA told us it takes all reports of suspicious activity aboard aircraft seriously, and the matter requires no further investigation at this time.
However, a current Federal Air Marshal who works flights every week says of the TSA, “They’re liars. They’re flat out liars.”
http://dcclothesline.com/2013/10/11/memo-warning-numerous-terrorist-dry-runs-airplanes-geller-atlas-shrugs/

AdamG

10-15-2013, 03:28 PM

Nothing to see here. Move along.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2013/10/07/weekend-attacks-on-arkansas-electric-grid-leave-10000-without-power-you-should-have-expected-u-s/

They got their cracka.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57607369/arrest-made-over-arkansas-power-grid-attacks/

davidbfpo

11-02-2013, 08:22 PM

Nada Bakos, an ex-CIA analyst, draws attention to the apparent USG and beyond failure to counter non-Jihadist violence, this time citing the LAX incident. She starts with:
Early warning intelligence looks a lot like this DHS report from 2009; Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization. That early warning analysis is directly related to the LAX shooting among others. The problem is, as with other early warning analysis, it wasn’t given the proper public discussion and government action because it was perceived as controversial. It got swept under the rug because no one wanted to acknowledge the dark side of extreme/fringe right politics in the US.

(And ends with) We have the information and forewarning to develop a strategy and not be caught on our heels by rightwing extremist armed gunmen. Just because they look like us, talk like us and reside in the US, doesn’t make them any less of a threat than Islamic extremists.

Link:espionneanalyst.wordpress.com/2013/11/02/early-warning-of-the-lax-shooting/

Bill Moore

11-03-2013, 12:35 AM

Seems premature to assume the shooter was on the extreme right, he easily could have been an anarchist, or simply disturbed. In the bigger picture it was a very minor event, just like the bombing in Boston, yet our media will enlarge it to the point that it has a strategic impact. In the case of Boston, some politicians will jump on board and milk it for all it worth. All this plays into the hand of our adversaries and encourages more pin prick attacks that often hard to detect and disrupt.

davidbfpo

11-08-2013, 09:23 PM

An interesting article, based on interviewing Boston Police's Bomb Squad; with some details I have not seen before, notably the devices found after the initial attack:http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/10/boston-police-bomb-squad/all/

Bill Moore

12-30-2013, 02:58 AM

This was in the SWJ News round up today, but based on the video link it appears this attack took place in April. Based on the description of the attack it was not simple vandalism. It was likely conducted by an insider with a grudge, or an individual/group that received some professional level sabotage training. I'm surprised there not was more damage, but since there were no reported follow on attacks I'm guessing this was a grudge attack.

http://complex.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/24/power-station-military-assault

"Military-Style" Raid on California Power Station Spooks U.S.

"These were not amateurs taking potshots," Mark Johnson, a former vice president for transmission operations at PG&E, said last month at a conference on grid security held in Philadelphia. "My personal view is that this was a dress rehearsal" for future attacks.

He isn't correct about .22, but his point is still valid, and apparently he doesn't work for the government because he actually has a common sense recommendation.

A shooter "could get 200 yards away with a .22 rifle and take the whole thing out," Wellinghoff said last month at a conference sponsored by Bloomberg. His proposed defense: A metal sheet that would block the transformer from view. "If you can't see through the fence, you can't figure out where to shoot anymore," Wellinghoff said. Price tag? A "couple hundred bucks." A lot cheaper than the billions the administration has spent in the past four years beefing up cyber security of critical infrastructure in the United States and on government computer networks.

AdamG

02-21-2014, 03:40 PM

The existence of an Islamic jihadist enclave in Texas have been confirmed by the declassified FBI documents. It has been stated that enclave is part of a terrorist organization as it was identified by the Department of Homeland Security.

The group is part of the Muslims of the Americas, which in their turn belong to the Pakistani-based militant group Jamaat al-Fuqra.

It is known that Jamaat al-Fuqra was founded in New York in 1980 by Sheik Mubarak Ali Gilani. Previously, Sheik Mubarak Ali Gilani was kept in Pakistani custody as he was found in connection with the abduction of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_02_21/Declassified-FBI-documents-prove-the-existence-of-terrorist-enclave-in-Texas-9905/

slapout9

02-21-2014, 10:33 PM

http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_02_21/Declassified-FBI-documents-prove-the-existence-of-terrorist-enclave-in-Texas-9905/

Nice find Adam. This guy was on FOX news talking about the situation in Texas just a short while ago. Here is a link to video he is making on Jihad in America.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPu7iVLSyX8

AdamG

03-03-2014, 12:53 AM

Los Angeles Gang Members Fight In Syria Alongside Pro-Hizbullah, Pro-Assad Forces

The following report is a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here.

Videos and images that surfaced recently show members of Los Angeles gangs fighting in Syria alongside pro-Hizbullah and pro-Assad forces. Two gang members, "Creeper," from the G'd Up-13 gang and "Wino," from the Westside Armenian Power gang, filmed themselves shooting AK-47s and boasting of being on the "front lines." Wino, aka "Wino Ayee Peeyakan," whose real name is Nerses Kilajyan, uploaded the images and videos to his Facebook profile.[1]

The images on Wino's Facebook page include multiple photos of him brandishing weapons; in one he is seen standing beside a Hizbullah operative, and in another he himself is wearing Hizbullah garb. Creeper is photographed and filmed alongside Wino in multiple photos and videos posted on the page.

Judging by the photos, Wino seems to have been fighting in Syria since December 2012. Comments by Wino's Facebook friends suggest that the two were deported from the U.S. due to their involvement in criminal activity.

To view a video clip of the gang members on MEMRI TV, click here

http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/7861.htm

davidbfpo

03-14-2014, 10:43 PM

Yes the article is a PR piece, but I actually think he does good as a leader:http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/14/my-patrol-with-the-nypd-s-bill-bratton.html

Jedburgh

04-09-2014, 06:35 PM

InSightCrime, 9 April 2014: Terrorism and Crime in the Americas - "It's Business" (http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/terrorism-and-crime-in-the-americas-its-business)

...If we were to put a label on any of this activity, it would probably be just that: it's business. These interactions appear to be, more than anything else, a way to achieve short-term monetary goals. Drug trafficking, contraband, weapons trafficking, diamond smuggling and numerous other activities help the terrorist groups reach these goals. Intermediaries like Harb and Joumaa facilitate these deals and perhaps have some ideological affinity to one or more of these organizations. But this does not mean these organizations have developed longstanding or even short-term working relationships. Security analyst Douglas Farah has aptly described them (http://archives.republicans.foreignaffairs.house.gov/112/fara101211.pdf) as "one-night stands."...

davidbfpo

04-16-2014, 10:40 AM

A controversial NYPD programem gathering information on the local and regional Muslim communities has been stopped; citing the Mayor:
a critical step forward in easing tensions between the police and the communities they serve, so that our cops and our citizens can help one another go after the real bad guys....

....a review of the unit – renamed the zone assessment unit in recent years – under the new police commissioner, William Bratton, found the same demographic information could be better collected through direct contact with community groups, officials said

Links:http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/16/muslim-surveillance-unit-disbanded-nypd
and a longer report (maybe behind a registrationw all):http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/16/nyregion/police-unit-that-spied-on-muslims-is-disbanded.html?

davidbfpo

04-17-2014, 01:00 PM

Just found, this was published in January 2014 and originates from the New America’s National Security Program:
...shows the NSA’s bulk surveillance programs have had a negligible impact in preventing terrorism in the United States.....an in-depth analysis of 225 individuals recruited or inspired by al-Qaeda or like-minded groups, and charged with a terrorism-related crime since 9/11. It notes that the contribution of the NSA’s bulk surveillance programs to these cases was minimal compared to more traditional law enforcement methods, which initiated the majority of cases. The report also found that the collection of American phone metadata has had no discernible impact on preventing acts of terrorism and only the most marginal of impacts on preventing terrorism-related activity, such as fundraising.

Nice graphic which will not copy:http://natsec.newamerica.net/nsa/analysis

davidbfpo

11-17-2014, 08:47 PM

John Schindler raises questions over this bombing and asks why are teh US authorities to reluctant to investigate:http://20committee.com/2014/11/17/lingering-okbomb-questions/

He asks:
It’s perhaps even more worthwhile to ask why certain sensational stories never seem to develop public traction at all, despite the existence of important evidence indicating there’s something we should be talking about....almost from the outset there have been nagging concerns about whether the full extent of the McVeigh-Nichols conspiracy was uncovered. Despite the expenditure of millions of man-hours on OKBOMB, questions have lingered for nearly two decades about how two hard-right ne’er-do-wells, neither of whom possessed bomb-making skills worth mentioning, managed to pull off such a spectacular attack on their first try — doubts that have lingered after 9/11, with many cases of failed bomb-making by self-starting jihadists across Europe and the United States.

He provides a number of links to sources and people who dispute the investigation.

Then he comments on two puzzling aspects, which I was not familiar with:
First, the visits by McVeigh and Nichols to the southern Philippines remain mysterious, and perhaps will in perpetuity. Their connections to Ramzi Yousef are weak but visible, while the hand of a Middle East intelligence service, one known for its support to international terrorism, was detectable in outline, if not in detail.

Second, Strassmeir (a German national, Zionist and right wing extremist) — who seems to be the key to much of the remaining mystery surrounding OKBOMB — appeared to be an intelligence source, and possible agent provocateur, for as many as three different intelligence services, all of which are known to watch neo-Nazi activities in the United States with interest.

Across the Atlantic the UK, in particular the city of Birmingham is nearing the 40th anniversary of the B'ham Pub Bombings, on November 21st 1974, which killed 21 and injured 182. That too had suspects quickly arrested, charged and convicted - known as the 'B'ham Six' - who were later freed on appeal.

There is a local campaign seeking justice for those killed, whose calls for a renewed criminal investigation have fallen on deaf ears. The bombings have some riddles, if not puzzles; such as the third bomb that was found that night, defused, but rarely mentioned for years and disposed of years later.

A short background:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_pub_bombings

No-one in government, the local police, Irish Republicans and others want this apparent "can of worms" re-opened. Which sounds similiar to the Oklahoma City bombing.

davidbfpo

01-26-2015, 11:18 PM

Two useful articles today. Their focus is on the USA, although a number of aspects have a wider application.

A long piece in The New Yorker, with a title and sub-title:
The Whole Haystack; The N.S.A. claims it needs access to all our phone records. But is that the best way to catch a terrorist?
Link:http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/26/whole-haystack

taken from the opening passages:
Almost every major terrorist attack on Western soil in the past fifteen years has been committed by people who were already known to law enforcement....In each of these cases, the authorities were not wanting for data. What they failed to do was appreciate the significance of the data they already had.... He cited a statement by Alexander’s deputy that “there’s only really one example of a case where, but for the use of Section 215 bulk phone-records collection, terrorist activity was stopped.” “He’s right,” Alexander said.

The second FP essay has the title:
The Myth of the Terrorist Safe Haven; A pernicious and persistent theory that America’s enemies flourish in foreign sanctuaries -- and that only military means can rout them -- has led us abroad in search of monsters to destroy.
Link:http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/01/26/al-qaeda-islamic-state-myth-of-the-terrorist-safe-haven/

A taster from the penultimate paragraph:
..evidence of the true threat of terrorism to Americans suggests that a hotel room in Hoboken can be just as much a safe haven as a hut in Helmand — and more dangerous too, given the proximity to American targets.

davidbfpo

01-29-2015, 11:19 AM

A short reply to the cited FP article (in the previous post) from Lawfare; which ends with:
..safe havens will continue to matter, and their threat is no myth.
Link:http://www.lawfareblog.com/2015/01/safe-havens-still-matter/

Bill Moore

01-29-2015, 12:23 PM

A short reply to the cited FP article (in the previous post) from Lawfare; which ends with:
Link:http://www.lawfareblog.com/2015/01/safe-havens-still-matter/

Cody Poplin's attack on the safe haven myth article could have served as a corrective, but his own counter piece was equally flawed. I think the underlying problem is identifying our adversaries as terrorists, and how that paradigm limits our view of the various movements associated with al-Qaeda (directly or indirectly). I agree al-Qaeda did not need Afghanistan to plan and conduct 9/11, but on the other hand at that stage of the movement they did need a safe haven to organize their global network (now it is probably robust enough to survive without a designated safe haven, since there are adequate safe havens (smaller scale) in many large cities and remote areas around the world.

Cody cited the Management of Savagery

“The Management of Savagery,” which is currently the homework of aspiring jihadis of the Islamic State, suggests that groups must establish safe havens, or regions where they can administer savagery. Key factors for site selection include “the presence of geographical depth;” the weakness of the ruling regime and the weakness of the centralization of its power in the peripheries of the borders of its state;” and the prior “distribution of weapons in the region.” Based on this criteria, Naji suggests Pakistan, Nigeria, Libya, and Yemen are all suitable places from which to spark the fire of jihad, concluding: “Before its submission to the administration, the region of savagery will be in a situation resembling the situation of Afghanistan before the control of the Taliban, a region submitting to the law of the jungle in its primitive form, whose good people and even the wise among the evildoers yearn for someone to manage this savagery.”

Point taken, but they're not talking about planning external attacks from these locations, though they certainly can and do. They're talking about unconventional warfare where AQ as an external sponsor exploits (and creates) conditions to establish their base. If you read about the theory on "competitive control" it is clear that both the communists and al-Qaeda do this better than the U.S. We have a difficult time understanding why it works, since it runs counter to our deeply held worldview based on "The End of History."

Cody made several good points, but the biggest shortfall in his argument was what he didn't cover. Al-Qaeda wanted us to invade Afghanistan. We certainly fought better than they expected, and it could have the end game if we were successful in killing their senior leadership before the movement went global. Instead it became a quagmire where we ended up wasting billions of dollars while AQ expanded elsewhere. Al-Qaeda's current strategy (articulated years ago, but most recently in their latest version of Inspire) is to get the West to over extend.

I think the correct answer is somewhere between these two arguments. We can't afford to pursue ineffective COIN approaches to eliminate safe havens. This approach has reduced our focus on the larger strategic picture and narrowed it down to one geographical spot that we look at through the lens of counterterrorism instead of strategically. This approach is simply unsustainable, yet these safe havens can't be ignored. Cody is right they must addressed, but we need a new sustainable approach for doing so. To be more provocative, even if we invested another five years of surge level effort in Afghanistan and actually stabilized the country (we would have to assume an enduring fight along their border with Pakistan) so what? How many countries can we afford to do this in? While we compressed our strategic world view to a tactical problem centered on Afghanistan (once again the failure of the center of gravity concept), the rest of the world continued to evolve in ways not beneficial to U.S. interests. A few examples of other problems include, Russia's aggression in Ukraine, China's aggression in the South China Sea, and AQ expanding through much of the Middle East and North Africa.

We need to take two steps back and look at the larger picture and have a more informed discussion on feasibility and strategic risk. In some ways I think the authors' are talking past one another and could come to a mutual agreement if they were sitting at a table discussing it.

AdamG

02-07-2015, 08:51 PM

ST. LOUIS — Six people, including three St. Louisans, are facing charges of providing support and resources to terrorists.

An indictment has been unsealed charging Ramiz Zijad Hodzic, 40, his wife, Sedina Unkic Hodzic, 35, and Armin Harcevic, 37, all of St. Louis County. Nihad Rosic, 26, of Utica, N.Y., Mediha Medy Salkicevic, 34, of Schiller Park, Ill., and Jasminka Ramic, 42, of Rockford, Ill., were also named in the indictment.

The United States attorney's office says all six suspects are natives of Bosnia who immigrated to the United States and are either naturalized citizens or have refugee or legal resident status.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/02/07/immigrants-charges-islamic-state-terrorism/23032923/

davidbfpo

02-07-2015, 10:59 PM

A 10 pg article via Lawfare 'Analytics in Action at the New York City Police Department’s Counter-terrorism Bureau':http://www.lawfareblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Levine_5.pdf

he New York City Police Department’s Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center integrates data from a variety of sources, including sensors (cameras, license plate readers, and environmental detectors) and records (arrests, complaints, summonses, 911 calls, etc.). Analyzing this data to inform decision making has required the development of several coordinated processes. These processes are leading to increased efficiency and effectiveness as well as improved situational awareness for senior leadership.

davidbfpo

04-03-2015, 06:29 PM

A long-awaited report on law enforcement’s response to the Boston Marathon bombing has been released Friday.

The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency found “weapons discipline” was lacking by law enforcement officers during the Watertown shootout on April 18 with the Tsarnaev brothers and the operation the next day to capture Dzhokhar.

The absence of organized, universal public safety procedures led to confusion among first responders in the wake of the bombings.

The press report has a copy of the 130 page report to read or download:http://www.buzzfeed.com/mikehayes/boston-marathon-bombing-law-enforcement-report?

AdamG

04-15-2015, 12:05 PM

ISIS is operating a camp just a few miles from El Paso, Texas, according to Judicial Watch sources that include a Mexican Army field grade officer and a Mexican Federal Police Inspector.

The exact location where the terrorist group has established its base is around eight miles from the U.S. border in an area known as “Anapra” situated just west of Ciudad Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Another ISIS cell to the west of Ciudad Juárez, in Puerto Palomas, targets the New Mexico towns of Columbus and Deming for easy access to the United States, the same knowledgeable sources confirm.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2015/04/isis-camp-a-few-miles-from-texas-mexican-authorities-confirm/

Separate thread for maximum visibility.
Dual posted in the Mexican cartel thread as well.

davidbfpo

04-21-2015, 10:40 AM

A comprehensive debunking of this report by Fabius Maximus:http://fabiusmaximus.com/2015/04/20/judicial-watch-isis-terrorists-coming-from-mexico-83175/?

I note his description of the source:
he disreputable Judicial Watch site, a muckraking organization run by “political activist” Larry Klayman (http://www.snopes.com/info/news/klayman.asp) (who issued a press release in October 2014 announcing he was petitioning several federal agencies to deport President Obama, and who has been barred for life by multiple judges (http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/strange_bedfellow/1998/06/nut_watch.2.html) for his repetitive misuse of the court system)

Even Fox News was unimpressed:http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/04/17/us-state-dept-calls-report-on-isis-training-camps-in-mexico-unfounded/

Bill Moore

04-21-2015, 11:36 AM

Good catch David, I was hoping to get around to peering into judicialwatch to see if they were credible. As Fabius points out, it is a far right propaganda organization managed by an ass clown. ISIL already has access to the U.S. via the internet and its numerous supporters. I don't think anyone in the security business is ignoring the problem, so it is unlikely a blog is provide groundbreaking intelligence:D. Judicialwatch is just jumping on the Mexican border bandwagon. The border is a major political issue in the U.S., so the left and right spread their half truths to make political hay. It will only get worse with the Presidential election coming up soon.

There are tens of thousands of Muslims south of our border. I can't recall the latest estimate, but there are approximately 200,000 Muslims in Mexico, with up to half being local converts. If you view every Muslim as a terrorist, then I guess they have terrorist training camps everywhere:confused:

I think the Fox Report quoting the State Department pretty much captures the reality. Our intelligence and law enforcement officials will investigate any report related to terrorist threats and if there is any truth to it. If there is, they'll get after it as non-conspiracy folks will realize when they see the number of terrorist attacks that our security forces have pre-empted.

AdamG

04-21-2015, 04:31 PM

davidbfpo

04-21-2015, 04:49 PM

Cited in part:
Guess neither of you saw my other post, chock full of dichotomy.

http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=167536&postcount=401

Yes I did thanks. There is considerable evidence about the radicalisation amongst the Somali-American community in Minneapolis, so the linked report was hardly a surprise. See:http://soufangroup.com/tsg-intelbrief-terror-recruitment-in-the-united-states/

tequila

04-21-2015, 08:11 PM

I think the cartels would win this fight pretty handily.

Perhaps ISIS is just looking to diversify its supply from the Beka'a?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/20/where-isis-gets-its-weed.html

Bill Moore

04-21-2015, 09:23 PM

'Far Right', 'enlightened Left', Progressive, whichever - Open Source is ripe with talking heads excreting their personal (or externally funded) bias.

Guess neither of you saw my other post, chock full of dichotomy.

http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=167536&postcount=401

Adam,

I did, and I also think eventually we'll see a terror-criminal network nexus south of our border to some extent, but I don't think it will be JudicialWatch breaking the news. I'm certainly not critiquing your post, I actually sent the article to a few folks with the caveat I have no idea how credible JW is.

If anyone is keeping stats I suspect radicalization within the U.S. is increasing, but that is no more than a hunch based on the unexplained popularity of ISIL.

AdamG

04-22-2015, 03:03 AM

Dave,
I'm just not particular about who gets used as the stalking horse.

I think the cartels would win this fight pretty handily.

The cartels have been moving away from weed as a cash crop, and I'd be more inclined to think that given the right volume of cash, they'd also rent out their pipeline into the US to anyone. It's not like the Cartels have any love for the US .gov.

Adam,

I did, and I also think eventually we'll see a terror-criminal network nexus south of our border to some extent, but I don't think it will be JudicialWatch breaking the news. I'm certainly not critiquing your post, I actually sent the article to a few folks with the caveat I have no idea how credible JW is.

If anyone is keeping stats I suspect radicalization within the U.S. is increasing, but that is no more than a hunch based on the unexplained popularity of ISIL.

Ja, ja, I know - but given how stupid the first decade & a half this century has been, I'd not be surprised if a Judicialwatch *was* the one to stumble onto the proverbial smoking burqa in the High Sierra.

I'll just leave this four year old flashback here with some reading music (https://youtu.be/wQF-TRDqoKw)

Controversial Muslim cleric is arrested while sneaking into the U.S.

January 27, 2011|By Richard Marosi, Los Angeles Times

Deported from Canada to Tunisia three years ago, Muslim cleric Said Jaziri was found hiding in the trunk of a BMW near the Mexican border.

Reporting from San Diego — U.S. border authorities have arrested a controversial Muslim cleric who was deported from Canada to Tunisia three years ago and was caught earlier this month trying to sneak into California in the trunk of a BMW, according to court documents.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/27/local/la-me-border-cleric-20110127

AdamG

05-06-2015, 04:45 PM

BDA* of the Garland TX clusterfark.

There seems to be a great deal of skepticism regarding whether or not the suspects were wearing body armor and whether they were armed with “automatic weapons” or “assault rifles” or something else entirely. Other photos from the crime scene suggest answers to those questions as well.

In the image above, we have drawn an orange rectangle around what appears to be blood-drenched halves of a soft body armor carrier worn by one of the terrorists. Most people don’t seem to grasp that there are multiple grades of soft body armor, that these materials degrade over time, and that the armor panels themselves do not often cover the entire torso, leaving gaps under the arms, below the ribs, and at the neck.http://bearingarms.com/pushed-forward-brave-garland-police-officer-advanced-brought-garland-terrorists/

* Battle Damage Assessment

AdamG

05-23-2015, 02:26 AM

Something that slipped past our radar last September.

SAN FRANCISCO – An attack last year on Silicon Valley's power grid appears to have involved only one shooter and did not require access to technology or a high degree of training, an FBI official said.

The incident began when one or more people lifted heavy manhole covers south of San Jose, climbed under the road and cut AT&T fiber optic cables, temporarily knocking out 911 service and phone service, sheriff's officials have said.

About 15 minutes later, someone fired a high-powered rifle into a nearby PG&E substation, damaging numerous transformers.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/09/11/2013-attack-on-silicon-valley-power-grid-easy-to-execute-but-others-say-it/

For the whole backstory, see
http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?p=168806#post168806

AdamG

06-17-2015, 04:09 PM

The FBI is looking into a series of deliberate cuts of fiber optic cables in the San Francisco Bay Area.

In the past year, there were 10 instances on four separate nights when telecom cables were intentionally cut in Fremont, Walnut Creek, Alamo, Berkeley and San Jose, the agency said Monday.
FBI Special Agent Greg Wuthrich said it's unclear if the incidents are unrelated or the work of a single person or group, but the FBI is keen to hear from anyone who may have witnessed anything suspicious.

http://www.itworld.com/article/2936325/networking/fbi-investigating-series-of-fiber-cuts-in-san-francisco-bay-area.html

AdamG

06-17-2015, 04:11 PM

PHOENIX (AP) -- Calling him "off-the-charts dangerous," authorities outlined the evidence against a Phoenix man who they say helped orchestrate a shootout on an anti-Islam event in Texas and had aspirations to join the Islamic State terrorist organization and attack the Super Bowl.

Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem, 43, was arrested last week on charges related to the shootout at a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest that led to the deaths of two roommates from Phoenix. An indictment filed in federal court in Phoenix says Kareem hosted the gunmen in his home beginning in January and provided the guns they used in the May 3 shooting in Garland, Texas.

http://www.whdh.com/story/29339139/law-man-charged-in-texas-shootout-eyed-super-bowl-attack

davidbfpo

07-07-2015, 07:27 PM

An American lurker has recommended this book 'Days of Rage: America's Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence' by Bryan Burrough.

From the Amazon summary:
enefiting from the extraordinary number of people from the underground and the FBI who speak about their experiences for the first time, Days of Rage is filled with revelations and fresh details about the major revolutionaries and their connections and about the FBI and its desperate efforts to make the bombings stop. The result is a mesmerizing book that takes us into the hearts and minds of homegrown terrorists and federal agents alike and weaves their stories into a spellbinding secret history of the 1970s.
Link:http://www.amazon.com/Days-Rage-Underground-Forgotten-Revolutionary/dp/1594204292/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1436294474&sr=1-1&keywords=days+of+rage+bryan+burrough

AdamG

09-11-2015, 02:18 AM

In at least three cities in the last 18 months, drivers have been targeted by “serial shooters,” the term police use to describe a sustained attack by elusive assailants who randomly fire onto busy highways.

In Kansas City, Mo., police hunted down a green Dodge Neon with Illinois plates. In Colorado, authorities are still on the lookout for a 1970s single-cab orange pickup truck connected to the shooting deaths of two people on a highway.

Now in Phoenix, another shooter or shooters are following the same general script. Twelve vehicles, from sedans and box trucks to commercial buses, have been hit by BB shots, unknown projectiles and, once, bullets.

Phoenix drivers were rattled again Thursday with reports of two shootings on a busy stretch of Interstate 10, the 11th and 12th such attacks since Aug. 29.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-phoenix-highway-shootings-20150910-story.html

AdamG

09-22-2015, 07:25 PM

With Pope Francis set to begin his first-ever U.S. visit Tuesday, a document obtained by NBC News shows law enforcement is worried terrorists may impersonate police officers, firefighters and EMTs to launch deadly attacks inside the U.S.

A memo distributed by the Pennsylvania State Police's Criminal Intelligence Center to law enforcement warns that imposters pretending to be first responders could use false identification to enter secure areas and wreak havoc before slipping away undetected.

"The impersonators' main goals are to further their attack plan and do harm to unsuspecting citizens as well as members of the emergency services community," said the bulletin, titled "First Responder Impersonators: The New Terrorist Threat."

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/pope-francis-visits-america/warning-terrorists-impersonating-cops-issued-popes-visit-n430916

AdamG

10-04-2015, 11:17 PM

From the Memory Hole, some perspective -

the deadliest school-related massacre in American history happened in 1927, at an elementary school in Bath, Mich. A school board member named Andrew Kehoe, upset over a burdensome property tax, wired the building with dynamite and set it off in the morning of May 18. Kehoe’s actions killed 45 people, 38 of whom were children.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2012/12/18/bath_school_bombing_remembering_the_deadliest_scho ol_massacre_in_american.html

AdamG

10-29-2015, 04:06 PM

The FBI has issued a nationwide warning about a possible attack against law enforcement on Halloween night.
CBS News reports that according to the warning, members of a group known as the National Liberation Militia may be planning to dress up in Halloween costumes and create incidents that would cause a police response. Members who would also be carrying bricks and guns would then ambush police as part of what the group calls a “Halloween Revolt,” the alert reportedly said.

Read More: FBI warning: Halloween terror threat targets police | http://nj1015.com/fbi-warning-halloween-terror-threat-targets-police/?trackback=tsmclip

omarali50

12-05-2015, 05:55 AM

I storified (https://storify.com/omarali50/san-bernadino-the-horror-the-horror)all the tweets on my TL about San Bernadino. I think they may be of some interest.
I am "happy" (happy is not really the word) that I got it more right than not..

https://storify.com/omarali50/san-bernadino-the-horror-the-horror

Some of these themes obviously deserve a more detailed look. Maybe later this weekend.

davidbfpo

12-05-2015, 09:20 PM

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CVfWsXwU8AASDY5.jpg:large

Bill Moore

12-06-2015, 01:21 PM

The sky is falling reporting is exactly what our adversaries desire. At the end of the day terrorism is theater, and our politicians and media have made this attack a Broadway hit. We'll never escape this self defeating behavior in a democracy where everything will be exploited for political gain. We need leaders that can provide a balanced response, not ignore or inflate, but rationally address the challenge.

slapout9

12-06-2015, 07:37 PM

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CVfWsXwU8AASDY5.jpg:large

This is pure NYT PC Propaganda and it is nothing but an attack on our Constitution, which they do not like. Most of these attacks are drug/gang related and most are black on black!!!!! go get the raw data!!!!! Also DOJ reports gun violence (murder) has and is on a multi-year decline.

Firn

12-06-2015, 07:59 PM

We discussed the fall in (gun) homicides earlier (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=143626&postcount=34). I'm glad that the Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/03/weve-had-a-massive-decline-in-gun-violence-in-the-united-states-heres-why/) injected similar facts into the discussion.

The use of rifles be it the illegal automatic ones used in Mumbai or Paris or the semi-automatic legally aquired ones used in San Bernadino seems to have become more common in terror attacks which are of course a specific issue. Proper intelligence and police work is of course vastly more important in general in this regard with gun control sometimes being a non-issue.

Keep in mind that for decades in Europe semi-automatic rifles similar to the ones used in the various armed forces were largely rather easy to acquire and we had a hardly any homicides comitted with those. Overall the EU comission should present (more) facts and information before coming up with blanket 'ban' proposals (http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-15-6111_en.htm).

omarali50

12-07-2015, 05:06 AM

MY promised article on the attack (http://brownpundits.blogspot.com/2015/12/san-bernadino-terror-attack.html).

http://brownpundits.blogspot.com/2015/12/san-bernadino-terror-attack.html

I think I have said it all before, except maybe the bit about Saudi Arabia.

omarali50

12-07-2015, 02:47 PM

A corrected and better edited version of my article on San Bernadino shootings is up at 3quarksdaily.com (http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2015/12/san-bernadino-terror-attack.html)

Comments welcome :)

AmericanPride

12-08-2015, 02:58 PM

This is pure NYT PC Propaganda and it is nothing but an attack on our Constitution

The Constitution is not a suicide pact.

most are black on black!!!!

(1) This is not true and (2) even if it were, how would that diminish the importance of mitigating gun violence?

Speaking of raw data:

- the most efficient terrorist attacks are those perpetrated with guns. Bombs sometimes fail to explode. Guns almost always function. Of 236 terrorist attacks or attempted attacks in the U.S. between 2001 - 2013, 63 were perpetrated by individuals acting alone. 36 people were killed in those attacks; 32 by firearms.

- the closer you are to guns, the more likely you to be killed by them; hence, the majority of suicides and homicides conducted by firearms. The proximity of firearms leads to higher risk of death by homicide or suicide.

http://www.motherjones.com/files/ownership-death630.png

- handguns are the most common firearm used in homicides and suicides.

- 36.8% of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty between 2005 - 2014 were killed by firearms.

- how many mass shootings have been stopped by the 'good guy with gun' theory? Trained law enforcement officers struggle to hit their target 30% (I think it's closer to 20%) of the time in shooting incidents - how do you think the average joe will fare?

The fact that more attacks like San Bernandino do not happen is probably a function of potential terrorist attackers failing to understand just how vulnerable America is to gun violence. Want to throw America in a frenzy? Every day for a week, a separate lone attacker armed with a gun targets a school, hospital, movie theater, and other soft targets in different parts of the country.

slapout9

12-08-2015, 07:32 PM

The Constitution is not a suicide pact. I agree with that which is why they put in the Second Amendment. They new Politicos could be and often are corrupt.

(1) This is not true and (2) even if it were, how would that diminish the importance of mitigating gun violence? Come on AP....you know it's true Chicago is the mass Shooting Capitol of the World and it is black on black crime....ask any good street cop around and he will tell you inter-racial crime is rare! All races tend to attack their own races, just a fact, again go to any FBI or DOJ stats and look it up.[/QUOTE]

Speaking of raw data:

- the most efficient terrorist attacks are those perpetrated with guns. Bombs sometimes fail to explode. Guns almost always function. Of 236 terrorist attacks or attempted attacks in the U.S. between 2001 - 2013, 63 were perpetrated by individuals acting alone. 36 people were killed in those attacks; 32 by firearms. Great big No,No,No.....it is guns against UNARMED or UNPROTECTED victims....that is always the missing part of the equation that the PC crowd leaves.

- the closer you are to guns, the more likely you to be killed by them; hence, the majority of suicides and homicides conducted by firearms. The proximity of firearms leads to higher risk of death by homicide or suicide.

http://www.motherjones.com/files/ownership-death630.png Again PC Bull stuff nothing happens until a PERSON with the Will To KILL with a gun!!! People decide to kill not guns

- handguns are the most common firearm used in homicides and suicides. Finally we agree, but so what. As Archie Bunker said "would it make you feel better if they were thrown off the roof and died"
The most violent form of death any American is likely to have happen to them is a car wreck!!! Should we ban Cars and make the place all safe and fluffy!!

- 36.8% of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty between 2005 - 2014 were killed by firearms. We are on a roll we agree again, but so what again? LE needs more money for combat shooting instead going to the range and do simple target shooting....after the Academy this is simply a waste of time and money.Been fighting that battle for years.....and loosing:(

- how many mass shootings have been stopped by the 'good guy with gun' theory? Trained law enforcement officers struggle to hit their target 30% (I think it's closer to 20%) of the time in shooting incidents - how do you think the average joe will fare? We are really on a roll, agree again. Again this is a training issue. Basic Firearms training should take place in High School like Driver's Ed. Oh I can here the PC crowd yeeling already!!!

The fact that more attacks like San Bernandino do not happen is probably a function of potential terrorist attackers failing to understand just how vulnerable America is to gun violence. Want to throw America in a frenzy? Every day for a week, a separate lone attacker armed with a gun targets a school, hospital, movie theater, and other soft targets in different parts of the country. That is right but we are confusing an act of vs. a criminal act. We should be using the National Guard at home like we did in WW2, to protect soft targets.

AmericanPride

12-09-2015, 01:59 AM

I agree with that which is why they put in the Second Amendment.

The point is that the the Second Amendment, as an amendment, is not necessarily a permanent fixture of the Constitution. :eek:

ask any good street cop around and he will tell you inter-racial crime is rare!

'Inter-racial crime' is rare because people are more often targeted by someone they know (or that knows them) rather than a stranger. This is also why gun-owners and their family members are most at risk of homicide or suicide by gun. Since the trend towards self-segregation is still strong, it is not surprising that inter-racial crime is rare. This is why over 80% of white homicide victims were murdered by another white person. If you are a white person, slap, you should beware of other white people. Especially if they own a gun. And especially if they are male. You know - just the 'raw data' speaking. :rolleyes:

Great big No,No,No.....it is guns against UNARMED or UNPROTECTED victims....that is always the missing part of the equation that the PC crowd leaves.

How many terrorist attacks have been prevented to date by the 'good guy with gun'?

People decide to kill not guns

Yes - and people who already own guns make that decision more frequently than people who do not own guns. It probably has something fundamentally to do with the easy availability of firearms combined with their higher efficiency in killing than other weapons.

Should we ban Cars and make the place all safe and fluffy!!

This is a fallacious argument. First, cars are not inherently designed as weapons. Second, firearms are inherently designed as weapons. The purpose of a weapon is to kill its target. The auto industry has been required to implement a wide range of safety features to make the automobile safer. Operating a motor vehicle requires a license with picture identification and insurance. And the right to operate a motor vehicle can be revoked for any number of reasons. We shouldn't ban cars - but we should endeavor to make driving safer.

but so what again?

"So what" is your response that firearms are the most dangerous threat to the lives of law enforcement officers? Are you anti- law enforcement slap? :confused:

We should be using the National Guard at home like we did in WW2, to protect soft targets.

Uh huh...

omarali50

12-09-2015, 04:50 AM

Trump day on Twitter (https://storify.com/omarali50/trump-day-on-twitter). Scroll down for debate. My fear is that the ruling elite/intellectuals/clerisy are already pretty clueless about Islam (both postmarxist Left AND non-literate Right) and this just makes it harder to do things relatively rationally. Anyway, check it out.

https://storify.com/omarali50/trump-day-on-twitter

slapout9

12-09-2015, 05:58 AM

The point is that the the Second Amendment, as an amendment, is not necessarily a permanent fixture of the Constitution. :eek: I got it.

'Inter-racial crime' is rare because people are more often targeted by someone they know (or that knows them) rather than a stranger. This is also why gun-owners and their family members are most at risk of homicide or suicide by gun. Since the trend towards self-segregation is still strong, it is not surprising that inter-racial crime is rare. This is why over 80% of white homicide victims were murdered by another white person. If you are a white person, slap, you should beware of other white people. Especially if they own a gun. And especially if they are male. You know - just the 'raw data' speaking. :rolleyes: I am very familiar with white males with guns. You may not have joined the SWC yet, so you may not have seen the post of when I was a Police officer and I along with my wife were ambushed in our front yard. The attacker had 3 guns on him(and emptied them at us), 25 more in his truck and about 5,000 rounds of ammunition. The post should still be up somewhere in the archives. If not I can send you a copy from Police Marksman Magazine:p

How many terrorist attacks have been prevented to date by the 'good guy with gun'? Don't know. Deterrence is hard to prove, like the Deterrent use of Nuclear Weapons, but I don't doubt that it has been done.

Yes - and people who already own guns make that decision more frequently than people who do not own guns. It probably has something fundamentally to do with the easy availability of firearms combined with their higher efficiency in killing than other weapons. Disagree, recent purchase of a weapon is a stronger indicator it will be used in a crime, simple long term possession has never been proven to increase likelihood of use in a crime.

This is a fallacious argument. First, cars are not inherently designed as weapons. Second, firearms are inherently designed as weapons. The purpose of a weapon is to kill its target. The auto industry has been required to implement a wide range of safety features to make the automobile safer. Operating a motor vehicle requires a license with picture identification and insurance. And the right to operate a motor vehicle can be revoked for any number of reasons. We shouldn't ban cars - but we should endeavor to make driving safer. It is a very good argument because it proves that if someone has the will to kill someone will use whatever they can get their hands on like a booby trap or an IED. Criminal/Terrorist control always works, gun control never has, except to impose dictatorship! As for safer driving again education and training is the answer.....personal responsibility not more" guvmint"

"So what" is your response that firearms are the most dangerous threat to the lives of law enforcement officers? Are you anti- law enforcement slap? :confused: My response is the weapons are not a danger!!!! Moral decay of the society is by far a greater threat. MY God man we have a declared Socialist running for President! Never in my life would I have thought that possible.

I have said this before and maybe you weren't here yet, but I had a training officer tell me" Never fear the weapon, always fear the person holding the weapon"still true today.

And since I was one NO I am not anti-LE. You are not anti-American are you? Instead of preserving, protecting and defending the Constitution sounds you are recommending that we subvert and sabotage it.

Uh huh...[/QUOTE] Agree[/QUOTE]

omarali50

12-11-2015, 04:41 AM

Trump's comments and subsequent discussion on my Twitter Timeline. May be of interest to some.

I storified them into

Trump day in America (https://storify.com/omarali50/trump-day-on-twitter)

Trump smashes the Overton Window, part 2 (https://storify.com/omarali50/trump-smashes-the-overton-window-part-2)

Azor

12-12-2015, 04:47 AM

Now that the firearms genie is out of the bottle, it's near impossible to roll it back - thanks NRA!

The fact is ownership of handguns and (semi)-automatics is bad for society as a whole.

Yes there are some instances where the good guy with the gun saves the day, but overall it's a disaster.

Seatbelts sometimes kill, should we ban them?

Should individuals be allowed nuclear weapons and B2 bombers in order to protect themselves from home invasion or government tyranny? Where do you draw the line?

82redleg

12-13-2015, 03:23 AM

Now that the firearms genie is out of the bottle, it's near impossible to roll it back - thanks NRA!

The fact is ownership of handguns and (semi)-automatics is bad for society as a whole.

Wiki says that the UN says that the US in only 121st out of 218 countries in rate of intentional homicide.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

Not sure that supports your argument that things here are particularly awful.

Look at the countries with lower rates- they fall into 2 general groups- comparatively small, relatively culturally homogenous (generally western European and Asian) countries (with rates that probably look like large sections of the US, if you could get data that discounted the major cities where most of the crime is), and authoritarian states whose data is at best suspect in my mind.

davidbfpo

03-06-2016, 07:31 PM

From the START consortium of researchers a short, two page summary of their research and their overview states, with my emphasis in bold:
This research brief presents the preliminary results of 25 years of ideological victimization committed by al-Qa’ida and affiliated movements and the extremist far-right in the United States from 1990 to 2014. For a full copy of the report, visit START’s website. Very little is known about victimization patterns, especially across ideologies, as researchers in terrorism and extremist violence tend to focus on perpetrator motives and typologies. Victim and target centered research provides a nuanced perspective of these violent events that can help mitigate victimization risk. Excluding the homicide victims associated with the four attacks on September 11th and the Oklahoma City bombing, 62 individuals were killed in 38 ideologically motivated homicide events committed by extremists associated with al-Qa’ida and affiliated movements and 245 were killed by far-right extremists (FRE) in 177 ideologically motivated incidents.The data for this brief originates from the United States Extremist Crime Database (ECDB), an open-source dataset that examines ideologically motivated and routine criminal activity, both violent and financial, committed by ideological extremists.
Link:https://www.start.umd.edu/pubs/START_VictimsofIdeologicalHomicides_ResearchBrief_ March2016.pdf

AdamG

07-21-2016, 04:34 PM

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over?*

Check out the neck tats.

OXNARD, Calif. -- A man faces charges of creating a chemical weapon capable of creating a gas the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention classifies as "immediately dangerous to life or health considerations" in a Walmart store here, CBS Los Angeles reports.

Martin Reyes, 31, was questioned Tuesday in connection with a report of having a possible improvised chemical weapon at the store the morning of June 18, says Oxnard police Sgt. Mike Gregson said.

The store was evacuated for about six hours until a hazmat team rendered the device safe.

A month-long investigation identified Reyes as the suspect. Reyes, who was in custody at Ventura County Main Jail on an unrelated charge, confessed to manufacturing and placing the chemical weapon inside the store, Gregson said.

The main said he researched how to do it on the Internet, Gregson added.
* Yes, I know that applies to 50% of the news we're interested in these days but seriously, com'n this guy is special.

(Added by Mod) Link:http://abc7.com/news/oxnard-man-arrested-for-planting-chemical-weapon-in-walmart/1436118/

AdamG

07-31-2016, 01:36 AM

Hundreds of terrorists will fan out to infiltrate western Europe and the U.S. to carry out attacks on a wider scale as Islamic State is defeated in Syria, FBI Director James Comey warned.

"At some point there's going to be a terrorist diaspora out of Syria like we've never seen before," Comey said Wednesday in New York. "We saw the future of this threat in Brussels and Paris," said the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, adding that future attacks will be on "an order of magnitude greater."

http://www.stripes.com/news/us/fbi-chief-warns-terrorist-diaspora-will-come-to-the-west-1.421192

As foretold by the Prophet Chuck Norris.
http://www.imfdb.org/images/thumb/5/5a/InvasionUSApromo.jpg/300px-InvasionUSApromo.jpg

Bill Moore

07-31-2016, 03:39 AM

Glad to hear the current administration got us out of two wars and increased our safety. :(

The slow approach working through others is not always the best approach. Those who promoted a UW approach for this challenge have lost crediblity. When you provide time, a lot of time, for the enemy to adapt to your strategy, then they'll adapt. Denying IS a physical safe haven in Iraq and Syria is still important, but it won't be decisive.

Our half stepping has certainly contributed to creating this mess.

AdamG

08-27-2016, 04:18 PM

What's an article on a drug that turns you into a naked face-eating zombie doing under an LE title on this site? Devil's in the details.

The man-made drug that's manufactured primarily in China entered the states only a few years ago, but didn't soar in popularity until 2013.
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/florida-zombie-drug-flakka-everything-you-need-to-know-w435074

If you wanted to destabilize an opponent's population and send it's emergency services into overdrive as a distraction during an international confrontation, this'd be a pretty good results delivery system.

Bill Moore

08-27-2016, 08:01 PM

We don't sufficiently appreciate the adversary's use of subversion, distraction, and attrition as strategic lines of effort to weaken us over the long term.

Even if China's government doesn't support this, and I suspect they don't, they can still benefit from it by ignoring it. Just like Russia and China benefited strategically by the U.S. being distracted in the Middle East.

AdamG

08-28-2016, 07:31 PM

We don't sufficiently appreciate the adversary's use of subversion, distraction, and attrition as strategic lines of effort to weaken us over the long term.

Funny you should mention this. See also
http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?p=192829#post192829

Even if China's government doesn't support this, and I suspect they don't, they can still benefit from it by ignoring it. Just like Russia and China benefited strategically by the U.S. being distracted in the Middle East.

Why? For the sake of argument, how would that be any different than Beijing's offensive cyberwar efforts?

If you're saying officially unsanctioned, the US has elements of the Federal Government doing 'dumb####' that could qualify as 'left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing'.

Furthermore, Beijing is far better at the long game than Washington DC. It would be well within the PRC's playbook guidelines to let some of their gangsters float a new drug that - if the circumstances dictate it - could be used as an asset during a confrontation.

AdamG

08-28-2016, 07:35 PM

Meanwhile, back at Soft Target USA

The briefing was held in a private banquet room about 1,000 feet from the White House. The FBI was there. The Department of Homeland Security was there. So were staffers from the 9:30 Club and the Black Cat, gay bars Number Nine and Trade, and dozens of other nightlife spots and restaurants.

The message was both dire and obvious, once unthinkable and now unavoidable: You know those terrorists who want to attack Washington?

Forget the Capitol. Next time, they might come for your happy hour.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/washingtons-next-terror-targets-forget-the-capitol-what-about-happy-hour/2016/04/14/2a20cc54-f1ed-11e5-85a6-2132cf446d0a_story.html

Note to all you inside-the-beltway readers: this is why you should be paying attention during those PERSEC briefings.

Bill Moore

08-29-2016, 12:54 AM

Funny you should mention this. See also
http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?p=192829#post192829

Why? For the sake of argument, how would that be any different than Beijing's offensive cyberwar efforts?

If you're saying officially unsanctioned, the US has elements of the Federal Government doing 'dumb####' that could qualify as 'left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing'.

Furthermore, Beijing is far better at the long game than Washington DC. It would be well within the PRC's playbook guidelines to let some of their gangsters float a new drug that - if the circumstances dictate it - could be used as an asset during a confrontation.

Why? If you are getting the desired result without getting your hands dirty, then the best decision may be simply letting it happen, you may even make a few arrests to pretend you're cooperating. In the meantime the idiots in our country consuming this junk out a burden on multiple systems (legal, medical, etc.). The majority of youth in our country now don't even meet minimal standards to join the military, this will further worsen that issue, but no need to worry we have plan. It's called the third offset strategy, and we'll use robots in the future to protect our retards who are incapable of protecting themselves.

davidbfpo

09-10-2016, 02:11 PM

NYT has a short version of a post-action report on the San Bernardino attacks, by the Police Foundation; it has lots of lessons to be learnt again methinks from my armchair.

Here is a taster:
The report shows how officers from multiple agencies handled a rapidly unfolding crisis, making decisions on the fly, often with little coordination or direction. The results were quick, sometimes heroic responses that may have saved lives but also created confusion and mistakes, though none proved fatal.

Perhaps most disturbing, more than six hours passed before officers searched a bag the killers had left at the scene of the shooting. Inside were three pipe bombs.Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/10/us/it-finally-clicked-that-this-wasnt-an-exercise-report-recounts-san-bernardino-shooting.html? (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/10/us/it-finally-clicked-that-this-wasnt-an-exercise-report-recounts-san-bernardino-shooting.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share&_r=0)

The Police Foundation report, 168 pgs (un-read):http://ric-zai-inc.com/Publications/cops-w0808-pub

AdamG

09-18-2016, 11:18 PM

ISIS in St. Cloud, just a nut case or an overlap of the two?

http://www.startribune.com/off-duty-officer-kills-man-who-stabbed-8-at-crossroads-mall-in-st-cloud/393850931/

http://kstp.com/news/st-cloud-police-crossroads-mall-report-shooting-stabbing/4267007/

http://www.sctimes.com/story/news/local/2016/09/17/reports-several-hurt-crossroads-center-incident/90607870/

davidbfpo

09-19-2016, 11:26 AM

Just found this report, from agencies:
Five suspected explosive devices have been found in a backpack near a train station in New Jersey as the security alert gripping America ratcheted up following the Manhattan bombing.Link:https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/19/new-york-bombing-both-devices-used-pressure-cooker-and-phone-reports

Whatever is happening I was surprised at the apparent details entering the public domain yesterday, seen on Twitter. One cited the Manhattan bomb being taken into the location in a suitcase by one man, then two men removing and walking off - caught on CCTV.

The Soufan Group's briefing:http://soufangroup.com/tsg-intelbrief-investigating-the-bombings-in-new-york-and-new-jersey/

AdamG

09-20-2016, 12:47 AM

God Bless America.
http://i.imgur.com/Tk0VA8i.png
via http://brokelyn.com/honor-among-thieves/

davidbfpo

09-20-2016, 09:47 PM

From The Soufan Group:
Bottom Line Up Front: • The combined efforts of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies led to an arrest approximately 48 hours after multiple bombings in New York and New Jersey.
• Despite the complex nature of the investigation, all problems and missteps were avoided through an impressive display of interagency cooperation.
• Civilians played a critical role at various stages of the investigation, from reporting locations of possible devices to the location of the suspect himself.
• Along with societal resilience, effective interagency counterterrorism cooperation will prove invaluable in a heightened terror threat environment.
Link:http://soufangroup.com/tsg-intelbrief-a-model-joint-terror-investigation/

I note the investigation went well - even when the NYPD Commissioner and the FBI's Asst. Director - were new in post.

AdamG

10-10-2016, 07:07 PM

Why? If you are getting the desired result without getting your hands dirty, then the best decision may be simply letting it happen, you may even make a few arrests to pretend you're cooperating. In the meantime the idiots in our country consuming this junk out a burden on multiple systems (legal, medical, etc.). The majority of youth in our country now don't even meet minimal standards to join the military, this will further worsen that issue, but no need to worry we have plan. It's called the third offset strategy, and we'll use robots in the future to protect our retards who are incapable of protecting themselves.

Ok, I'll buy the 'clean hands' theory.

SHANGHAI (AP) -- For a few thousand dollars, Chinese companies offer to export a powerful chemical that has been killing unsuspecting drug users and is so lethal that it presents a potential terrorism threat, an Associated Press investigation has found.
The AP identified 12 Chinese businesses that said they would export the chemical - a synthetic opioid known as carfentanil - to the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Belgium and Australia for as little as $2,750 a kilogram
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_CHINA_CHEMICAL_WEAPONS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

AdamG

11-27-2016, 02:35 PM

An Ohio college student who pleaded guilty to plotting an Islamic State-guided attack on a U.S. military employee and a police station was sentenced to two decades in prison, authorities said Wednesday.
Federal prosecutors said Munir Abdulkader, 22, was directed to carry out an attack in the Cincinnati area by Junaid Hussain, a well-known figure in the Islamic State. According to the details outlined in court documents,#Abdulkader had planned#to record the military member’s death before attacking the police station.

Noteworthy: the suggested articles linked at the bottom.

FBI says Minnesota man who survived 2007 bridge collapse got a settlement and used it to join ISIS

‘I am fed up with this evil’: How an American went from Ivy League student to disillusioned ISIS fighter

Va. man pleads guilty to helping friend who wanted to join the Islamic State

8.5-year prison sentence for Virginia man who planned to join ISIS

Police officer for D.C. subway system accused of trying to help ISIS
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/11/23/ohio-college-student-who-plotted-to-kill-military-employee-police-officers-for-isis-is-sentenced-to-20-years-in-prison/?postshare=8151480249200081&tid=ss_fb-bottom&utm_term=.0713fbd5032e