What & Who discovers terrorist plots?

[davidbfpo]

Read and understand, but it also seems this would be an opportunity for investigators to find leads to other members of the group. Even if they didn't support, it seems direct and indirect surveillance of family members (the law permitting) would help uncover cells and their plots. What am I missing?

Bill,

It is the initial "finger of suspicion" or clue, indeed discovery that 'x' and 'y family' are possible suspects. The proverbial "needle in a haystack". Who do you surveill, given that "chatter", SIGINT and other sources fail to help.

[davidbfpo]

After each UK and I expect in the USA too questions are asked of law enforcement (and intelligence agencies) whether they knew of the attacker's intentions beforehand.

It now appears that the suspect in the recent knife attack @ Leytonstone Tube Station, in East London, may have been signalled on mental health grounds three weeks before to the police beforehand by his own family and the Met say without mention of him being radicalised:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...-in-court.html

A recent Soufan Group newsletter asks how can a CT network adjust fully to a silent two person attack i.e. San Bernardino:http://soufangroup.com/tsg-intelbrie...-threat-radar/

Perhaps we will learn one day how the mental health agencies responded to the likely referral; I note the Met gave advice to the family to make contact with them, but it not clear if such a referral was made.

[Majormarginal]

There is a weak and poorly funded mental health system in the States. People with good support systems and good health insurance cannot get proper care. If one is not affluent and/or cooperative care is dismal. When institutional programs for the mentally ill were closed the idea was to transition to community based care. This transition was never seriously funded, funding has been cut, any community care that worked withered and died. Community care can be as basic as having someone to remind and/or encourage people to obtain and take their meds. Chicago closed half of its public mental health clinics in 2012. Early in my career one of my duties was transporting mentally ill people to hospitals or state mental health facilities. I had many regular customers. Several times I took the same individual for care twice in one shift. The mentally ill were "freed" from institutional settings and they were abandoned. There is no way for the mental health system to aid in prevention of attacks.

As for lone or pairs of shooters there is nothing that can prevent them from acting if they keep quiet about their plan. Anders Breivik wrote about this in his manifesto.

[davidbfpo]

A slightly different report, maybe not a terrorist plot, but support activity whereby the accused encouraged support for ISIS. The headline:

Muslim doctor and sister help convict Isil supporters after confronting them

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...ting-them.html

The doctor and sister are British nationals, of Iraqi origin and are Shia Muslim sisters - that IMHO provides enough motivation.

[davidbfpo]

A short article by Peter Bergen, to accompany a HBO documentary, 'Homegrown: the CT dilemma' broadcast last Monday, so behind a paywall:

A very telling indicator of future violence by a terrorist, FBI behavioral analysts have found, is what they term "leakage."..Leakage is, in short, when a violent perpetrator signals to people in his circle that he is planning an act of violence...In an ongoing study of some 80 terrorism cases in the States since 2009, which has not been previously reported, the FBI found that "leakage" happened more than 80% of the time...Strangers were the most likely to come forward.. rather than the 95% of the peers, family members and authority figures who generally had the most useful information about a militant.
(He concludes) The lesson of the FBI study of terrorism cases is that the most useful information comes from peers and family members. That's why community outreach to Muslim communities to enlist their help in detecting those who may be becoming militant is the most fruitful approach to dealing with the scourge of terrorism.

Link:http://edition.cnn.com/2016/02/03/op...eakage-bergen/

He does not cite the actual FBI report and a look on Google failed.

[davidbfpo]

From Walsall, a small city in the West Midlands and edited slightly:

...police only discovered the group after Rev Petty contacted the police after her son Jacob disappeared in the summer of 2014 and emailed his parents to say he was off to start a “new life” in Syria.

A senior West Midlands Police officer said:

The case here emerged from worried parents about their son who they reported missing. That was Jacob Petty. It turns out he had gone to Syria and joined Isis and from the inquiries we followed, it became a wider investigation and we were able to then open up these evidential routes into all of these people.

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...upporters.html

Background on the network today, from two sources:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...-fanatics.html and the BBC:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35653366

[davidbfpo]

It is rare to see such figures in public, even if they refer to allegations of state benefits fraud in the UK:

More than 85% of fraud allegations made by the public over the last five years were false, according to figures obtained by the Observer. A freedom of information request to the Department for Work and Pensions discloses that between 2010 and 2015 the government closed 1,041,219 alleged cases of benefit fraud put forward by the public. Insufficient or no evidence of fraud was discovered in 887,468 of these.

Link:http://www.theguardian.com/society/2...ud-allegations