Terrorism in the USA:threat & response

[Kevin23]

I've watched the CNN footage and listened to some "talking heads" passing comment. Compliments to NYPD and others on the response after a member of the public called in.

Some interesting comments - at a strategic level - by Steve Coll:http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...terrorism.html



Further away and from a CT viewpoint:

Link:http://allthingsct.wordpress.com/201...-times-square/

Apparently this all was connected to something larger,

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/vid..._explosion.htm

Also surveillance could a "middle-aged white male" fleeing from the vehicle earlier before the incident. Although some are pointing to this as domestically connected the vehicle in question's tags were stolen and so does it appear the rigged vehicle also was.

[Dayuhan]

Apparently this all was connected to something larger,

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/vid..._explosion.htm

That needs to be taken as something less than revealed truth, as the sole source appears to be a 911 call. This sort of thing tends to draw all sorts out of the woodwork, and the call may have had no basis at all.

Given the generally amateur appearance of the work and the amount of evidence left behind I don't expect it will take too long to find out who's responsible, and more will doubtless be known.

[William F. Owen]

IIRC correctly this device seems pretty similar to the one left near Piccadilly Circus in 2007. - I would have thought this latest one provides Forensic playground for anyone interested.

[bourbon]

A lengthy and revealing article on the NYPD Intelligence Division:

With CIA help, NYPD moves covertly in hunt for terrorists, by Associated Press. New York Post, August 24, 2011.

Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the NYPD has become one of the country's most aggressive domestic intelligence agencies. A months-long investigation by The Associated Press has revealed that the NYPD operates far outside its borders and targets ethnic communities in ways that would run afoul of civil liberties rules if practiced by the federal government. And it does so with unprecedented help from the CIA in a partnership that has blurred the bright line between foreign and domestic spying.

Neither the city council, which finances the department, nor the federal government, which contributes hundreds of millions of dollars each year, is told exactly what's going on.

The department has dispatched teams of undercover officers, known as "rakers," into minority neighborhoods as part of a human mapping program, according to officials directly involved in the program. They've monitored daily life in bookstores, bars, cafes and nightclubs. Police have also used informants, known as "mosque crawlers," to monitor sermons, even when there's no evidence of wrongdoing. NYPD officials have scrutinized imams and gathered intelligence on cab drivers and food cart vendors, jobs often done by Muslims.

Many of these operations were built with help from the CIA, which is prohibited from spying on Americans but was instrumental in transforming the NYPD's intelligence unit.

A veteran CIA officer, while still on the agency's payroll, was the architect of the NYPD's intelligence programs. The CIA trained a police detective at the Farm, the agency's spy school in Virginia, then returned him to New York, where he put his new espionage skills to work inside the United States.

And just last month, the CIA sent a senior officer to work as a clandestine operative inside police headquarters.

While the expansion of the NYPD's intelligence unit has been well known, many details about its clandestine operations, including the depth of its CIA ties, have not previously been reported.

[bourbon]

Inside the spy unit that NYPD says doesn't exist, by Adam Goldman. Associated Press, 31 August 2011.

NEW YORK (AP) — From an office on the Brooklyn waterfront in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, New York Police Department officials and a veteran CIA officer built an intelligence-gathering program with an ambitious goal: to map the region's ethnic communities and dispatch teams of undercover officers to keep tabs on where Muslims shopped, ate and prayed.

The program was known as the Demographics Unit and, though the NYPD denies its existence, the squad maintained a long list of "ancestries of interest" and received daily reports on life in Muslim neighborhoods, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

[davidbfpo]

This 'mapping' is a well known UK CT tool, often arousing controversy amongst those normally targeted an I've selected one of the first Google hits:

‘Rich Picture’ is a mechanism to gather National Security intelligence to identify investigative opportunities for both local and regional levels. ‘Rich picture’ has been termed ‘neighbourhood policing intelligence for counter terrorism’....These will inform local decision-making and guide suitable interventions involving local strategic partners and communities.

Link:http://www.mpa.gov.uk/committees/mpa/2008/080724/08/

IIRC there are older posts on the subject, which has roots in what the UK did in Northern Ireland; others refer to it as 'ground cover'

[jmm99]

The Eleventh Circuit, United States v. Augustin, has affirmed the convictions of Burson Augustin, Stanley Grant Phanor, Patrick Abraham, Rotschild Augustine, and Narseal Batiste (collectively, “Appellants”).

They were all convicted of:

(1) conspiracy to provide material support to a Foreign Terrorist Organization (Al Qaeda) by agreeing to provide personnel (including themselves) to work under Al Qaeda’s direction and control, knowing that Al Qaeda has engaged or engages in terrorist activity, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2339B;

and (2) conspiracy to provide material support by agreeing to provide personnel (including themselves), knowing and intending that they were to be used in preparation for and in carrying out a violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 844(f)(1) and (i), and to conceal and disguise the nature, location, source, and ownership of such material support, all in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2339A.

Abraham and Batiste were also convicted of conspiracy to maliciously damage and destroy by means of an explosive a building leased to an agency of the United States (the FBI) and a building used in interstate and foreign commerce (the Sears Tower), all in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 844(n). Additionally, Batiste was convicted of conspiracy to levy war against the Government of the United States and to oppose by force the authority thereof in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2384.

This opinion dealt with multiple issues, which Bobby Chesney has summarized at Lawfare, Convictions Affirmed in “Miami Seven” Case:

* Charges under the material support statutes (2339A and 2339B) are not subject to the Treason Clause because the elements of those offenses differ from a charge of treason.

* The evidence was sufficient to support the conclusion that the defendants conspired to act under al Qaeda’s direction and control, rather than to act independently.

* The opinion is somewhat unclear regarding the defendants’ argument that taking photographs of federal buildings from public viewpoints cannot constitute material support. On one hand, the opinion clearly rejects the argument that such activity implicates the language in Holder v. HLP in which the Supreme Court discussed whether speech imparted specialized knowledge. On the other hand, the panel went on to focus on the defendants’ participation in an al Qaeda oath ceremony as well as their acts of photography, rather than just saying that the photography was itself an act of material support.

* It does not matter if a person takes an oath to support al Qaeda based on financial motivations rather than ideological affinity.

* It is not clear whether the definition of “personnel” contained in 18 USC 2339B(h) apply as well to a material support charge based on “personnel” under 18 USC 2339A, though that turned out not to matter in this case since the evidence sufficed to meet the direction-and-control standard.

* On the overall strength of the evidence and the fact that there were two prior hung juries: “We recognize that the evidence supporting Augustin’s, Phanor’s, and Augustine’s convictions on both Count 1 and Count 2 is far from overwhelming. Indeed, two juries failed to convict on these counts. But those juries also failed to acquit. Ultimately, with the benefit of three months of testimony and over five days of deliberation, the third jury arrived at a verdict, distinguishing between the various defendants and various counts. We cannot say that the jury was unreasonable in concluding that the government carried its burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Augustin, Phanor, and Augustine violated § 2339A and § 2339B as charged.”

* Applying a plain error standard, the panel rejected the argument that the FBI’s role in the scheme amounted to outrageous government conduct in violation of the Due Process Clause.

* It was permissible for one of the investigating agents to testify about how various statements by a defendant had impacted the course of the investigation; this did not constitute improper testimony about the defendant’s state of mind, though the court called this a “very fine line.” The testimony also was relevant in that it was probative of why the investigation unfolded as it did, an issue that had become material because of the entrapment issue.

The importance of this case is that, from start to finish, the plot was fabricated by the FBI and its informant from the local Muslim community - and was, in that sense, not "real". As I've said a number of times, the defense of entrapment (in one form or another) is often asserted, bur rarely successfully.

Regards

Mike

[davidbfpo]

Reading US coverage of suspected terrorism within the USA I have been puzzled at the series of plots uncovered - as my earlier posts indicate - and of late the difference between NYPD and the FBI over the threat posed in plots NYPD investigated.

This FP article is rather stark:

Pimentel had managed to scrape down "over 700" match heads -- which usually utilize phosphorus as the active agent -- to manufacture his explosive material. Leaving aside the stupidity of scratching match heads when gunpowder works just as easily, fans of the Discovery Channel's Mythbusters might recall that the show's hosts failed to produce an explosion when they ignited one million match heads. The idea that the scrapings from 700 match heads dispersed across three pipe bombs would kill "a lot of people" is suspect at best.

This paragraph refers to statistics and cites melons:

That statistic warrants repeating: Despite dozens of plots, homegrown jihadists have only managed to kill 15 people in the United States since 9/11 -- and 13 of those deaths were the result of one unstable soldier's shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas. Just to put this in perspective, more Americans have been killed here at home by contaminated cantaloupe in the past few months than have been killed by violent Islamic extremists in the past decade!

Link:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article..._door?page=0,0

For a host of reasons, many political, others bureaucratic and some sinister it is hard to get a sensible, public statement on the real threat posed by the "enemy within".

[Kevin23]

An unspecified individual and threat was arrested earlier today in NYC after they were reportedly planning a lone wolf attack on armed service members returning home from deployment.

This is a just breaking story,

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/1...n_1104195.html

[omarali50]

Looks like the most incompetent and closely surveilled "lone moron" yet.
The Jihadi cause in the US seems to be scraping the bottom of the barrel.
To an outsider like me, it does look like the threat from a real organization with state patronage may be the only serious threat. Everything else is just police work and dumb luck (or lack of it). Organizations that used to have state patronage may still have some serious capabilities, but without a sanctuary, a serious well planned attack seems hard to imagine.
And before anyone jumps on me, let me note that I think 9-11 plotters did indeed have a sanctuary and did have training and support from more than one state (including, for some of their helpers, from the US in the 1980s). No self-started group of wannabe jihadis could have done it then and none can do it now.
Of course, there may be a whole secret world of plotters out there about whom I am clueless. But from reading the news, doesnt this look like a fair summary?

[Bill Moore]

I agree there are a lot of incompetent want to bes out there, especially the self actualized the ones who are limited to training via the internet. However, I disagree that without State support we don't have to worry about a serious terrorist attack. Of course depending on your view of serious. I would consider Tim McVeigh's (sp?) attack on the Federal Building in Oklahoma a serious attack without a State sponsor. There are plenty of opportunities for ex-military members/police from numerous nations to train indepedent actors (with no state sponsors) to be fairly competent with small arms and to develop home made explosives. The Mumbai attack was state sponsored, but it definitely doesn't have to be. I think of two incidents off hand where one or two attackers without State sponsors caused a lot of mayhem. The bank robbers in L.A. a few years back who wore head to toe body armor and held off a number of police officers for an extended period of time. If it was their intent to kill civilians and a lot of them, they easily could have. The kid at the college/university in W. VA who managed to kill several students before the police responded. Some consider MAJ Hansan's attack in TX a serious attack. A couple of other attacks come to mind overseas. First the chemical in Japan by Aum Shinrikyo, and the right wing Italians who denotated a large bomb in a train station in Bologna that killed over 80 people.

If you're asking if a non-state sponsored group can conduct a 9/11 level attack, I think the answer is a definite yes, but those attacks will outliers not the norm, because most people who gravitate to terrorism are relatively incompetent to begin with, but there are exceptions and for those exceptions there are opportunities for mass mayhem.

[omarali50]

you are right about the possibility of mayhem with lone rangers (the Norway Shooter would also qualify). I was wrong. What I would now say (having been corrected) is that whether they kill a lot of people or not, they are then police problems, not military problems. No war needs to be launched to stop such attacks and no war can do anything about them. State-sponsored terrorism is an entirely different problem and is a more logical target for state-to-state confrontation, pressure and even war (though the cost-benefit in favor of war may be relatively rare, dont you think?).
Something like that. As you can see, I am making this up as I go along. I aim to learn.

[Bill Moore]

What I would now say (having been corrected) is that whether they kill a lot of people or not, they are then police problems, not military problems. No war needs to be launched to stop such attacks and no war can do anything about them.

I can understand the logic behind this statement, but I am not entirely convinced this is true. I definitely agree there is no requirement for large military forces to occupy foreign lands to fight terrorism, but I think there is still a major (I would argue a critical) role for intelligence and special operations forces to continue waging a war against these groups in the shadows. That is sustainable long term (from the cost perspective) and I think ultimately more effective. The example given for this thread was a homegrown threat that clearly was a police problem, but his mentor Anwar Awlaki was an intelligence/SOF problem, as are many others who plan and inspire operations against the U.S. from afar. The police can only act defensively, which doesn't give us much depth when it comes to defense. I think an offensive element for this conflict is critical.

[davidbfpo]

Post created for a new thread and so will appear out of sequence.

Three members have drawn attention whether the Jihadist group in Somalia, Al-Shabaab / Al-Shabab poses a threat to the USA and this discussion may take-off.

There are several threads on the subject, notably Terrorism in the USA:threat & response (merged thread):http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=8828

Somalia: not piracy catch all thread:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=8468

Horn of Africa historical (pre-2011): catch all thread:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...read.php?t=789

[Chowing]

Post created for a new thread; please refer to Post 5 for cross-references.

So much for African terrorism not being of concern to the US. In a story just out today by longtime federal prosecutor W. Anders Folk in testimony before th the Investigative Project on Terrorism:

According to an investigative report issued in July by the House Homeland Security Committee's majority staff, Shabaab-related federal indictments "account for the largest number and significant upward trend in homegrown terrorism cases" filed by the Justice Department, with at least 38 cases unsealed since 2009

Link:http://www.investigativeproject.org/...shabaab-threat

[KingJaja]

Doesn't Al Shabab in the US have more to do with a large concentration of Somali immigrants in places like Minnesota?

That is a risk that has to be dealt with, but it is nothing like the Muslim enclaves in Bradford, Birmingham and London. (I once lived in Leeds, not too far from Bradford).

America is great at integrating immigrants unlike most of Europe.

[Stan]

Al Shabaab: Recruitment and Radicalization within the Muslim American
Community and the Threat to the Homeland

COMMITTEE FINDING: More than 40 Americans from Muslim-American
communities across the U.S. have joined Shabaab since 2007, including two-dozen
recruits from Minneapolis, Somalia experts told the Committee’s Majority staff. Three
who returned home have been charged in U.S. courts, one awaits extradition from The
Netherlands, and 15 are believed dead, leaving as many as 21 American Shabaab
fighters still at large or unaccounted for. At least 20 Canadians of Somali descent,
many from Toronto, also have disappeared and are believed to have joined Shabaab,
according to Canadian security officials.

Much more at the link

[KingJaja]

Is Al Shabab:

1. Purely an Islamic terrorist organisation.
2. A nationalist movement triggered by the US sponsored invasion of Somalia.
3. Equal parts (1) and (2).

I'm asking because I suspect it is not only Islam motivating a significant number of ethnic Somalis to fight against foreign forces in Somalia or to attack the US.

[davidbfpo]

The importance of New York City, with NYPD as a key partner, in reducing crime and improving quality of life is well known on both sides of the Atlantic. That does not mean the methods used by NYC & NYPD are understood.

Today I found a Labour Peer's blogsite pointing at the work of a University of Berkeley criminology professor, Franklin Zimring; which might impact the Metropolitan Police's Commissioner's policies:http://www.lordtobyharris.org.uk/wil...g-in-new-york/

Here are the links to:

a) Vera Institute podcast (9mins):http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXZgSnKfN5U
b) Scientific American interview (30 mins): http://www.scientificamerican.com/po...t-new-11-08-09
c) Website article:http://www.thecrimereport.org/news/i...w-york-miracle
d) Professor's book:http://www.amazon.com/City-that-Beca.../dp/0199844429

In this discovery LAPD is mentioned in this article, which is more about police reform:http://www.thecrimereport.org/news/a...-from-the-cold

Undoubtedly the professor has his critics, as does NYPD, but this maybe of interest to SWC readers.

[davidbfpo]

Announced in New York city:

a system which aggregates and analyzes information from cameras, license-plate readers, sensors and law enforcement databases...

The Domain Awareness System, unveiled by the city on Wednesday, will be able to map suspects' movements and provide NYPD investigators and analysts with real-time crime alerts. While the new system does not add to the city's surveillance infrastructure, it aims to make the existing data easier to use.

Link:http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article...LOGY/120809887

I hope expectations are not too high, the experience of the UK has not been impressive - except in CT and focussed priority investigations. Plus the opposition rapidly adjust their M.O.