Terrorism in the USA:threat & response
Moderators Note
In March 2011 this thread was renamed after being merged with a thread in Threat & Adversary, to reflect the primary focus on terrorism and counter terrorism in the USA. There are other, long running threads that refer to these issue. On 2/5/2011 another thread The FBI and CT Intelligence was merged to here. On 26/10/14 the Boston Marathon bomb thread was merged to here. A 2017 thread now continues this theme:President Trump & Terrorism in the USA:threat & response (ends).
9 May NY Times - 6 Men Arrested in a Plot Against Ft. Dix by David Kocieniewski.
Quote:
Six Muslim men from New Jersey and Philadelphia were charged Tuesday with plotting to attack Fort Dix with automatic weapons and possibly even rocket-propelled grenades, vowing in taped conversations “to kill as many soldiers as possible,” federal authorities said.
The arrests came after a 15-month investigation during which the F.B.I. and two informers who had infiltrated the group taped them training with automatic weapons in rural Pennsylvania, conducting surveillance of military bases in the Northeast, watching videos of Osama bin Laden and the 9/11 hijackers and trying to buy AK-47 assault rifles.
The authorities described the suspects as Islamic extremists and said they represented the newest breed of threat: loosely organized domestic militants unconnected to — but inspired by — Al Qaeda or other international terror groups...
Plot Illustrates Balkans' Role as Islamist Foothold
9 May Washington Times - Plot Illustrates Balkans' Role as Islamist Foothold by Bill Gertz.
Quote:
The six foreign-born Muslims accused of planning a shooting attack at the U.S. military base included four ethnic Albanians, and U.S. officials say their arrests highlight how Islamist groups are using the Balkans region to help in recruiting and financing terrorism.
Prosecutors described the men as "radical Islamists," with four coming from the province of Kosovo in the former Yugoslavia, where the ethnic Albanian population of Muslims fought one of the several wars that grew out of the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Suspect Agron Abdullahu, who faces only weapons violations in the case, was described in court papers as a "sniper in Kosovo."...
Attempts Seen As Model for New Attacks On U.S. Soil
3 July Washington Post - Attempts Seen As Model for New Attacks On U.S. Soil by Karen DeYoung.
Quote:
The next terrorist assault on the United States is likely to come through relatively unsophisticated, near-simultaneous attacks -- similar to those attempted in Britain over the weekend -- designed more to provoke widespread fear and panic than to cause major losses of life, U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials believe.
Such attacks require minimal expertise and training and are difficult to prevent. Although British investigators have not claimed al-Qaeda involvement in the latest incidents, officials here said they may constitute a "hybrid" phenomenon, in which al-Qaeda inspires and guides local groups from afar but establishes no visible operational or logistical links.
"What is a direct link?" asked one counterterrorism official. "Is it couriers? Messengers?" U.S. officials "from very senior folks" on down, he said, are watching as the British work to reconstruct the attacks and trace their origin...
NYPD Intelligence Division: The Homegrown Threat
NYPD Intelligence Division: The Homegrown Threat - SWJ Blog.
Quote:
Recently released report from the New York Police Department’s Intelligence Division -
Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat by Mitchell D. Silber and Arvin Bhatt.
Preface
If the post-September 11th world has taught us anything, it is that the tools for conducting serious terrorist attacks are becoming easier to acquire. Therefore intention becomes an increasingly important factor in the formation of terrorist cells. This study is an attempt to look at how that intention forms, hardens and leads to an attack or attempted attack using real world case studies.
While the threat from overseas remains, many of the terrorist attacks or thwarted plots against cities in Europe, Canada, Australia and the United States have been conceptualized and planned by local residents/citizens who sought to attack their country of residence. The majority of these individuals began as “unremarkable” -they had “unremarkable” jobs, had lived “unremarkable” lives and had little, if any criminal history. The recently thwarted plot by homegrown jihadists, in May 2007, against Fort Dix in New Jersey, only underscores the seriousness of this emerging threat.
Understanding this trend and the radicalization process in the West that drives “unremarkable” people to become terrorists is vital for developing effective counter-strategies. This realization has special importance for the NYPD and the City of New York. As one of the country’s iconic symbols and the target of numerous terrorist plots since the 1990’s, New York City continues to be the one of the top targets of terrorists worldwide. Consequently, the NYPD places a priority on understanding what drives and defines the radicalization process.
The aim of this report is to assist policymakers and law enforcement officials, both in Washington and throughout the country, by providing a thorough understanding of the kind of threat we face domestically. It also seeks to contribute to the debate among intelligence and law enforcement agencies on how best to counter this emerging threat by better understanding what constitutes the radicalization process...
Much more at the blog entry and on the NYPD site (entire report)
The FBI and Counterterrorism Intelligence
CQ Politics, 2 Nov 07: FBI Hoped to Follow Falafel Trail to Iranian Terrorists Here
Quote:
Like Hansel and Gretel hoping to follow their bread crumbs out of the forest, the FBI sifted through customer data collected by San Francisco-area grocery stores in 2005 and 2006, hoping that sales records of Middle Eastern food would lead to Iranian terrorists.
The idea was that a spike in, say, falafel sales, combined with other data, would lead to Iranian secret agents in the south San Francisco-San Jose area.
The brainchild of top FBI counterterrorism officials
Phil Mudd and
Willie T. Hulon, according to well-informed sources, the project didn’t last long. It was torpedoed by the head of the FBI’s criminal investigations division,
Michael A. Mason, who argued that putting somebody on a terrorist list for what they ate was ridiculous — and possibly illegal.
A check of federal court records in California did not reveal any prosecutions developed from falafel trails......