Terrorism in the USA:threat & response

[davidbfpo]

A lengthy article reviewing home-grown terrorism in the USA:

My conclusion should be generally reassuring to Americans: Muslim homegrown terrorism does not at present appear to constitute a serious threat to their welfare. Nor is there a significant analytical or evidentiary basis for anticipating that it will become one in the near future. It does not appear that Muslim Americans are increasingly motivated or capable of engaging in terrorist attacks against their fellow citizens and residents

That also cites former National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair’s characterization in February 2011 of violence

..from “homegrown jihadists” as “sporadic,” in which a “handful of individuals and small, discrete cells will seek to mount attacks each year, with only a small portion of that activity materializing into violence against the homeland.

Link:http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/...ed_states.html

[AdamG]

Pinellas Park, Florida -- A Pinellas Park man is accused of planning to attack crowded Tampa locations -- including night clubs -- with a car bomb, assault rifle and other explosives.

Sami Osmakac, 25, was arrested Saturday night. He is charged with one count of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. A federal judge ordered him held without bond during his first court appearance Monday afternoon. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison and a $250,000 fine.

http://www.wtsp.com/news/topstories/...d-of-bomb-plot

Tampa, Florida -- His arrest affidavit suggests Sami Osmakac's first choice was to go after military targets in the Bay area, but thought they were too secure.

"I would love to go after the Army people," he said, according to the affidavit. "But the bases are so locked up."

http://www.wtsp.com/news/article/231...lot-disturbing

[AdamG]

RALEIGH, N.C. — One of the men involved in a Johnston County terrorist cell that authorities said plotted attacks on a Marine base in Virginia and foreign targets tried to have witnesses in his trial last fall killed, according to federal records unsealed Monday.

Hysen Sherifi was found guilty after a month-long trial of conspiring to provide material support to terrorism and conspiring to carry out attacks overseas, two counts of firearms possession and conspiring to kill federal officers or employees. He was sentenced two weeks ago to 45 years in prison.

Federal authorities said Sherifi tried to hire someone to kill and behead at least three witnesses in the case, and he wanted pictures of the corpses to prove that they were dead. He also wanted a fellow inmate killed, believing the man tricked him out of some money, according to court documents.

http://www.wral.com/news/state/story/10637165/

[AdamG]

Interesting perspective -

PALO ALTO, California - Like left-over food repeatedly reheated for public consumption, United States allegations of an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington received a new lease of life on Monday via the congressional testimony of the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, as a dress rehearsal for a fuller bout of Iran-bashing at this week's "threat assessment" hearings in congress.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NB02Ak01.html

Also, cross-reference

[davidbfpo]

Hat tip to FP Blog for this excellent article on the Lone Wolves / Lone Wolf aspect to modern terrorism; admittedly I thought there was a thread on the loners, so I've placed it here as every example bar one is American:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...olves?page=0,0

The lone wolf we need to worry about is truly solitary and self-motivated: someone who doesn't talk to people about his plans and doesn't require meaningful assistance from informed accomplices. Anyone who fails to meet those conditions is a different kind of threat...

I do like these two passages, which I have juxtaposed:

They are essentially al Qaeda volunteers -- people who step forward and offer their services to a terrorist organization that can provide them with resources and support.

They were receiving advice, concrete assistance, and passive reinforcement from people they believed -- rightly or wrongly -- to be part of larger terrorist organizations.

And who:

were actually undercover law enforcement agents or informants..

[davidbfpo]

The activity of NYPD has appeared here before and there is a SWJ article that should be read:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ad.php?t=15307

Assessing the New York Police Department’s Intelligence Efforts Targeting America’s Muslims

[davidbfpo]

An ICSR article looking back at the BLA in the early 1970's; which ends with:

The case of the BLA does not offer any tidy counterterrorism lessons. But it does help us remember that homegrown U.S. terrorism did not begin on 9/11. Moreover, the BLA reminds us that domestic violent extremism is not confined to individuals or groups who identify themselves as Muslims. Finally, the campaign against the BLA shows that even extremely violent terrorist groups can be dismantled by relatively mundane counterterrorism tools like police investigations, aggressive prosecutions, and long prison sentences—in other words, by treating terrorists like dangerous criminals.

Link:http://icsr.info/blog/The-Black-Libe...-1970s-America

[jmm99]

As Bob Hope (our expat Brit) used to sing - Thanks for the Memory ....

We should remember context, of course ...

From the START database (its history and methodology), we have four of the USAian groups mentioned in the article:

Perpetrators: (Black Liberation Army) - SEARCH RESULTS: 37 INCIDENTS

Perpetrators: (Black Panthers) - SEARCH RESULTS: 25 INCIDENTS

Perpetrators: (Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA)) - SEARCH RESULTS: 7 INCIDENTS

Perpetrators: (Weather Underground, Weathermen) - SEARCH RESULTS: 45 INCIDENTS

and, for comparison, the IRA (not including splinter IRA groups):

Perpetrators: (Irish Republican Army (IRA)) - SEARCH RESULTS: 2673 INCIDENTS

the last being quite a different kettle of fish.

Adding to the foregoing:

Country: (Northern Ireland)(not including attacks related to Northern Ireland, but occuring elsewhere) - SEARCH RESULTS: 3885 INCIDENTS

Country: (United States) - SEARCH RESULTS: 2347 INCIDENTS

Note that (in #s per year) the early 70s in the US far exceeded what has occured since.

Regards

Mike

[Presley Cannady]

Originally Posted by jmm99

We should remember context, of course ...

Context is the last refuge of the guy who says "Hey, simmer down now! Are they really shooting at us?"

From the START database...

Data entry, unlike terrorism, will never die.

[jmm99]

What are you trying to say here ?

Regards

Mike

[davidbfpo]

A lengthy FP Blog article 'Patriot Games' and better explained by the sub-title:

How the FBI spent a decade hunting white supremacists and missed Timothy McVeigh.

Yesterday being the seventeenth anniversary of the Oklahoma City mass murder.

Link:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...ames?page=full

The article ends with:

There are obviously fundamental differences between targeting the radical fringe Patriot movement and targeting the mainstream Muslim community. Targeting all Muslims for infiltration is akin to targeting all white Americans to gain intelligence on supremacists. And the social consequences of fomenting paranoia and mistrust of government in overwhelmingly law-abiding communities are different than within a movement that fundamentally presumes government malfeasance....

The issue of how the government uses infiltration will continue to be hotly debated. By looking at the lessons of the past, we can start to craft the right questions for the future.

[AdamG]

CLEVELAND (AP) -- Five men, at least three of them anarchists, plotted to blow up a bridge near Cleveland, but there was no danger to the public because the explosives were inoperable and were controlled by an undercover FBI employee, the agency said Tuesday in announcing the men's arrests.

The target of the plot was a bridge that carries a four-lane highway over part of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park in the Brecksville area, about 15 miles south of downtown Cleveland, the FBI said.

Authorities said three of the men were arrested Monday and are self-described anarchists, not tied to international terrorism.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...HOME&TEMPLATE=

[AdamG]

"Most Likely" a lone nutter / Ted Kaczynski fan, but worth noting -

PHOENIX — Flick the switch on these flashlights and they don't light up. They blow up.

Three of these bombs have exploded within the last month in the Phoenix area, causing minor injuries to five people and raising fears of more serious ones.

Police still have no idea who is behind them and have taken the unusual step of putting up 22 billboards across the sprawling metro area to warn residents about discarded flashlights.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47747069.../#.T9QxHcWd6So

[AdamG]

WASHINGTON — The militant organization that was once the scourge of the U.S. militarycampaign in Iraq and probably is responsible for more than 100 deaths in the country over the last few days has set its sights on launching attacks in the United States, intelligence officials said.

Al Qaeda in Iraq released a message this week that threatened to strike at the "heart" of the United States, and several associates of the group have been arrested in the U.S. and Canada in the last two years, said American officials, a sign that the organization has tried to establish a network in North America.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...,6632983.story

[AdamG]

The "O" in OPSEC doesn't stand for "Oops"

The New York Post is quivering in fear and outrage over a graduate level course for intelligence analysts that requires students to write a fake terrorism plot, complete with methods of execution, sources of funding, number of operatives needed and the target government’s reaction.

Students, who are training for intelligence and counterterrorism careers, must take into account the “goals, capabilities, tactical profile, targeting pattern and operational area,” the syllabus states — according to the Post‘s harrowing story Monday.

The Post‘s crack investigative team uncovered the covert training of terrorists by obtaining the syllabus of the class offered by NYU’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies Center for Global Affairs.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...rism-homework/

[AdamG]

PORTSMOUTH, Ohio (WSAZ) -- A dead science teacher, weapons of mass destruction, first responders in hazmat suits and the Ohio Army National Guard all near the Municipal Stadium in Portsmouth, Thursday. There's no cause for alarm -- this is just a drill!

The mock disaster training exercise is being done with Scioto County first responders and the Ohio Army National Guard 52nd Civil Support Unit.

"It's the reality of the world we live in," says Portsmouth Police Chief Bill Raisin. "Don't forget there is such a thing as domestic terrorism. This helps us all be prepared."

The make-believe scenario is timely. Two school employees who are disgruntled over the government's interpretation of the Second Amendment, plot to use chemical, biological and radiological agents against members of the local community.

http://www.wsaz.com/news/headlines/M...187322931.html

[bourbon]

FBI agent testifies that Oregon terrorism suspect had trouble with adult tasks. Associated Press, 16 January 2013.

The attorney also played recordings in which the agents asked Mohamud to rent a large storage shed in which to build the bomb.

Youssef testified the FBI assigned such tasks to test the Mohamud's resolve. In this test, however, Mohamud initially didn't understand what type of storage unit the agents wanted, and then took a month to follow through. The agent acknowledged that he and another agent had to prod Mohamud, eventually giving him the name of a storage company and driving by.

"Not much of a test if you're pointing out the right one," Hay said.

I cant help but think that one of these days there is going to be a serious terrorist cell inside our country, and the FBI is going to be judicially hamstrung because they have wasted whatever wiggle room they had - when it comes to entrapment and provocation - on feeble-minded suspects.

[jmm99]

from Bourbon
I cant help but think that one of these days there is going to be a serious terrorist cell inside our country, and the FBI is going to be judicially hamstrung because they have wasted whatever wiggle room they had - when it comes to entrapment and provocation - on feeble-minded suspects.

Good point.

I'm not a fan of the entrapment defense: subjectively (Another successful sting); analytically in considering individual cases (Augustin Sting Operation Affirmed by 11th Circuit); and objectively in considering its overall failure rate (It usually does fail):

2005 Michigan Law Review, Psychology, factfinding, and entrapment

Although accurate statistical evidence of the frequency with which the entrapment defense succeeds is difficult to come by, anecdotal evidence suggests that it is seldom successful. One survey of practicing criminal defense attorneys described it as "judicially unpopular," (17) best used only "in desperate circumstances," (18) or "in a few cases with ideal facts," where "plea bargaining has proved unsuccessful," (19) and "no other defense is possible." (20) Another survey of State's Attorneys in Chicago reveals a perception that in narcotics sales cases where the defendant pleads entrapment, "the jury will convict almost every time." (21) The author of one police manual on the execution of sting operations states that he has "never, in hundreds of cases, ever lost one to entrapment," and that in all the sting operations he has studied, he has "not heard of a single case being lost to a defense of entrapment." (22)

But, going to the well too often (when the well is already fouled) is potentially not healthy for living prosecutions.

Regards

Mike

[davidbfpo]

The issues around the Somalia community in Minneapolis are familiar here, although other communities exist in other cities and Canada, Minneapolis appears to be the focal point.

This Somali newspaper report indicates that removing young Somali men, long resident, but not born in the USA, are being detained pending removal to Somalia:http://horseedmedia.net/2013/01/24/m...d-as-children/

I expect this is an executive decision and quite legal, if fraught with problems.

Now, the Twin Cities Somali community circulates rumors of scores of their members who have been deported to Somalia and hundreds who wait their fate at detention centers. ICE officials have not confirmed the total number of Somalis who have been deported so far or kept in detention.

Many community members have expressed disappointment in the government’s decision to send people back to the dangerous country they’ve escaped.

[davidbfpo]

A different slant, a research study based on indictments, not convictions:

...there were nine terrorist plots involving American Muslims in 2012. Only one of them, the attempted bombing of a Social Security office in Arizona, actually led to any violence. There were no casualties in that or any other incident.

Link to report:http://tcths.sanford.duke.edu/docume..._final2013.pdf and to short press report:http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013...lim-terrorism/