Cops or Police in Counterinsurgency COIN

[Bill Moore]

http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/201...ategy/#c006641

For some reason my post on "Obama needs a new strategy" posted as anonymous, but the jest of my response is that we need a new national defense strategy for AQ and like threats that seamlessly blends law enforcement, intelligence and special operations forces. All three would have to undergo a significant culture change, and all three need to.

http://www.nationalterroralert.com/u...ag/terrogence/

As for Attackerman's post that there wasn't sufficient intelligence available to connect the dots, that may be true, what also may be true is that all the intelligence available wasn't considered due to established procedures.

ABC News reports details on an Israeli intelligence company that monitored jihadist web discussions about plane bombing tactics weeks before the Detroit attack.

Most of the analysts at Terrogence are former Israeli intelligence operatives. From a converted chicken coop in a village in central Israel they monitor Islamic internet sites devoted to global jihad and terrorism. Their mission is to identify new and credible threats against western targets.

According to Terrogence founder Gadi Aviran the online discussion ran to 25 pages and continued until a critical posting in late November by a known extremist with a proven track record in explosives. This individual has been monitored for several years and is widely respected by participants in the forums. His posting in Arabic read:

“You can ignite a detonator using a medical capsule and put concentrated sulphuric acid into it, and then put it over the explosive materials.”

They believe the “medical capsule” mentioned in the post could easily refer to a syringe as used in the attack on North West Flight 253.

Law enforcement brings a critically important set of investigative skills to the fight, investigations that yield intelligence that frequently doesn't get into intelligence channels because it must be protected to ensure the case is not compromised prior to prosecution. The intelligence community is pretty impressive in what they can collect, but less so when determining what it means. Special operations forces obviously bring unique capabilities to act upon the intelligence unilaterally or in partnership with foreign partners if they're given the authority to neutralize the threat if it is beyond the scale of law enforcement to handle. There is much room for improvement on how we can better blend the capabilities of these great organizations to defeat terrorist and terrorist related threats.