Oct 7

Oct 7 hostages

the collector - Thomas P Owens Sr

Surprised to find me in your lair
lucifer?
that look is unbecoming
yes
I am well aware of your wickedness
as are the Gods
they only shake their heads in despair
and send me to do their bidding
unlike yourself
I do not crave to bestow suffering
your death shall be brief
come now
did you really believe that your empire
built on the blood and corpses of the innocent
would come without retribution?
Sin
lucifer
is never overlooked
or eclipsed by power
power you will now relinquish for eternity
say goodbye to your precious hell
and hello to a new one
for your soul shall reside in the company of those you took
a rather fitting punishment don't you think?
is that fear I detect in the eyes of the great lucifer?
your presence is awaited with great anticipation
and I shall give them their prize

 

September 11

Nothing could have been prevented. But still you know that somehow something wasn't watching. Something let attention lapse, releasing everything that follows, as the weight falls from the air. ― Madison Smartt Bell

    

Never Forget

My father, Norberto, was a pastry chef at ­Windows on the World in Tower One. For 10 years, he made many fancy and famous ­desserts, but the sweetest dessert he made was the marble cake he made for us at home. … Whenever we parted, Poppi would say, ‘Te amo. Vaya con Dios.’ And this morning, I want to say the same thing to you, Poppi. I love you. Go with God. – Catherine Hernandez

Never Forget

From Patricia Morrison's recollections of the 911 attack in the post WTC RIP:

I forced myself up to the roof again that night to look, and unless you live here and know how it is, you cannot imagine how strange it is not to see them there, those giant towers. I’ve seen them there as long as I’ve lived here as an adult in the city where I was born; I watched them in all weathers, as people in hill country watch their hills. I saw them go up, and now I’ve seen them come down. And all that was there that night was evil glowing smoke.

But except for that first night, I had not yet been able to look at where they stood. In my East Village neighborhood the towers were omnipresent; you’d look downtown on First or Second or Third Avenues and there they were, looming over the low-rise buildings between, mountains standing tall behind a range of foothills, somehow making the other building around them look not smaller but taller themselves.

And yet I knew that I had to look, that I dishonored the people who died there and even, in some strange way, the towers themselves, by not being able to look.

So yesterday, Sunday September sixteenth, I went out for an immense walk. I went up to a park near my home, passing a hospital whose walls are covered with photos of the lost, and praying as I passed, then took a bus to the Hudson River side of town. I got off at Abingdon Square, walked the couple of blocks to the river edge, and just started walking south, as far as I could get.

And I MADE myself look, every step of the way. At where the towers were, at where they now were not. At the flame and smoke still pouring out of their graves, and the graves of those who died there, as out of the throat of a volcano.

They’re not there. They’re not there. They will never be there again. After a while your eyes start playing tricks and you think you see their ghosts rising up through the smoke. But they’re not there.

 

Never Forget

Heaven never defaults. The wicked are sure of their wages, sooner or later.

- Edwin Hubbell Chapin

 

Never Forget

With Benghazi last year and this red line nonsense this year it is clear that, to our detriment, many have forgotten. Not me.
  

Stratfor and Andie MacDowell

In this Stratfor article George Friedman tries to dress up Obama's increasing isolationist tilt as the U.S. disengages from international flash points a wise move. Me, I'm not so sure -- I think building roads, spreading cells towers and in general hailing American notions of democracy will prove to be much more fertile seeds than a lot of people think at present.

Besides, dirty little wars are the lot of major powers. As much as they may be unpopular, they're kind of inevitable and avoiding them usually costs down the road. We shall see.

As for the Hot Stratfor Babe, since the article dealt with endless war the endless day of the movie Groundhog Day came to mind, and so Andie MacDowell became the easy winner of this article's title of Hot Stratfor Babe.

Ms MacDowell started her career as a print model, turned to television commercials and from there moved onto a very successful stint as a leading lady in movies. She continues to be busy, doing television, film and continues to model.

Avoiding the Wars That Never End
By George Friedman, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, January 15, 2013

Last week, U.S. President Barack Obama announced that the United States would transfer the primary responsibility for combat operations in Afghanistan to the Afghan military in the coming months, a major step toward the withdrawal of U.S. forces. Also last week, France began an intervention in Mali designed to block jihadists from taking control of the country and creating a base of operations in France's former African colonies.

The two events are linked in a way that transcends the issue of Islamist insurgency and points to a larger geopolitical shift. The United States is not just drawing down its combat commitments; it is moving away from the view that it has the primary responsibility for trying to manage the world on behalf of itself, the Europeans and its other allies. Instead, that burden is shifting to those who have immediate interests involved.
Insecurity in 9/11's Wake

It is interesting to recall how the United States involved itself in Afghanistan. After 9/11, the United States was in shock and lacked clear intelligence on al Qaeda. It did not know what additional capabilities al Qaeda had or what the group's intentions were. Lacking intelligence, a political leader has the obligation to act on worst-case scenarios after the enemy has demonstrated hostile intentions and capabilities. The possible scenarios ranged from additional sleeper cells operating and awaiting orders in the United States to al Qaeda having obtained nuclear weapons to destroy cities. When you don't know, it is both prudent and psychologically inevitable to plan for the worst.

The United States had sufficient information to act in Afghanistan. It knew that al Qaeda was operating in Afghanistan and that disrupting the main cell was a useful step in taking some action against the threat. However, the United States did not immediately invade Afghanistan. It bombed the country extensively and inserted limited forces on the ground, but the primary burden of fighting the Taliban government was in the hands of anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan that had been resisting the Taliban and in the hands of other forces that could be induced to act against the Taliban. The Taliban gave up the cities and prepared for a long war. Al Qaeda's command cell left Afghanistan and shifted to Pakistan.

The United States achieved its primary goal early on. That goal was not to deny al Qaeda the ability to operate in Afghanistan, an objective that would achieve nothing. Rather, the goal was to engage al Qaeda and disrupt its command-and-control structure as a way to degrade the group's ability to plan and execute additional attacks. The move to Pakistan at the very least bought time, and given continued pressure on the main cell, allowed the United States to gather more intelligence about al Qaeda assets around the world.

This second mission -- to identify al Qaeda assets around the world -- required a second effort. The primary means of identifying them was through their electronic communications, and the United States proceeded to create a vast technological mechanism designed to detect communications and use that detection to identify and capture or kill al Qaeda operatives. The problem with this technique -- really the only one available -- was that it was impossible to monitor al Qaeda's communications without monitoring everyone's. If there was a needle in the haystack, the entire haystack had to be examined. This was a radical shift in the government's relationship to the private communications of citizens. The justification was that at a time of war, in which the threat to the United States was uncertain and possibly massive, these measures were necessary.

This action was not unique in American history. Abraham Lincoln violated the Constitution in several ways during the Civil War, from suspending the right to habeas corpus to blocking the Maryland Legislature from voting on a secession measure. Franklin Roosevelt allowed the FBI to open citizens' mail and put Japanese-Americans into internment camps. The idea that civil liberties must be protected in time of war is not historically how the United States, or most countries, operate. In that sense there was nothing unique in the decision to monitor communications in order to find al Qaeda and stop attacks. How else could the needle be found in the haystack? Likewise, detention without trial was not unique. Lincoln and Roosevelt both resorted to it.

The Civil War and World War II were different from the current conflict, however, because their conclusions were clear and decisive. The wars would end, one way or another, and so would the suspension of rights. Unlike those wars, the war in Afghanistan was extended indefinitely by the shift in strategy from disrupting al Qaeda's command cell to fighting the Taliban to building a democratic society in Afghanistan. With the second step, the U.S. military mission changed its focus and increased its presence massively, and with the third, the terminal date of the war became very far away.

But there was a broader issue. The war in Afghanistan was not the main war. Afghanistan happened to be the place where al Qaeda was headquartered on Sept. 11, 2001. The country was not essential to al Qaeda, and creating a democratic society there -- if it were even possible -- would not necessarily weaken al Qaeda. Even destroying al Qaeda would not prevent new Islamist organizations or individuals from rising up.
A New Kind of War

The main war was not against one specific terrorist group, but rather against an idea: the radical tendency in Islamism. Most Muslims are not radicals, but any religion with 1 billion adherents will have its share of extremists. The tendency is there, and it is deeply rooted. If the goal of the war were the destruction of this radical tendency, then it was not going to happen. While the risk of attacks could be reduced -- and indeed there were no further 9/11s despite repeated attempts in the United States -- there was no way to eliminate the threat. No matter how many divisions were deployed, no matter how many systems for electronic detection were created, they could only mitigate the threat, not eliminate it. Therefore, what some called the Long War really became permanent war.

The means by which the war was pursued could not result in victory. They could, however, completely unbalance U.S. strategy by committing massive resources to missions not clearly connected with preventing Islamist terrorism. It also created a situation where emergency intrusions on critical portions of the Bill of Rights -- such as the need to obtain a warrant for certain actions -- became a permanent feature. Permanent war makes for permanent temporary measures.

The break point came, in my opinion, in about 2004. Around that time, al Qaeda was unable to mount attacks on the United States despite multiple efforts. The war in Afghanistan had dislodged al Qaeda and created the Karzai government. The invasion of Iraq -- whatever the rationale might have been -- clearly produced a level of resistance that the United States could not contain or could contain only by making agreements with its enemies in Iraq. At that point, a radical rethinking of the war had to take place. It did not.

The radical rethinking had to do not with Iraq or Afghanistan, but rather with what to do about a permanent threat to the United States, and indeed to many other countries, posed by the global networks of radical Islamists prepared to carry out terrorist attacks. The threat would not go away, and it could not be eliminated. At the same time, it did not threaten the existence of the republic. The 9/11 attacks were atrocious, but they did not threaten the survival of the United States in spite of the human cost. Combating the threat required a degree of proportionality so the fight could be maintained on an ongoing basis, without becoming the only goal of U.S. foreign policy or domestic life. Mitigation was the only possibility; the threat would have to be endured.

Washington found a way to achieve this balance in the past, albeit against very different sorts of threats. The United States emerged as a great power in the early 20th century. During that time, it fought three wars: World War I, World War II and the Cold War, which included Korea, Vietnam and other, smaller engagements. In World War I and World War II, the United States waited for events to unfold, and in Europe in particular it waited until the European powers reached a point where they could not deal with the threat of German hegemony without American intervention. In both instances, it intervened heavily only late in the war, at the point where the Germans had been exhausted by other European powers. It should be remembered that the main American push in World War II did not take place until the summer of 1944. The American strategy was to wait and see whether the Europeans could stabilize the situation themselves, using distance to mobilize as late as possible and intervene decisively only at the critical moment.

The critics of this approach, particularly prior to World War II, called it isolationism. But the United States was not isolationist; it was involved in Asia throughout this period. Rather, it saw itself as being the actor of last resort, capable of acting at the decisive moment with overwhelming force because geography had given the United States the option of time and resources.

During the Cold War, the United States modified this strategy. It still depended on allies, but it now saw itself as the first responder. Partly this could be seen in U.S. nuclear strategy. This could also be seen in Korea and Vietnam, where allies played subsidiary roles, but the primary effort was American. The Cold War was fought on a different set of principles than the two world wars.

The Cold War strategy was applied to the war against radical Islamism, in which the United States -- because of 9/11 but also because of a mindset that could be seen in other interventions -- was the first responder. Other allies followed the United States' lead and provided support to the degree to which they felt comfortable. The allies could withdraw without fundamentally undermining the war effort. The United States could not.

The approach in the U.S.-jihadist war was a complete reversal from the approach taken in the two world wars. This was understandable given that it was triggered by an unexpected and catastrophic event, the reponse to which flowed from a lack of intelligence. When Japan struck Pearl Harbor, emotions were at least as intense, but U.S. strategy in the Pacific was measured and cautious. And the enemy's capabilities were much better understood.
Stepping Back as Global Policeman

The United States cannot fight a war against radical Islamism and win, and it certainly cannot be the sole actor in a war waged primarily in the Eastern Hemisphere. This is why the French intervention in Mali is particularly interesting. France retains interests in its former colonial empire in Africa, and Mali is at the geographic center of these interests. To the north of Mali is Algeria, where France has significant energy investments; to the east of Mali is Niger, where France has a significant stake in the mining of mineral resources, particularly uranium; and to the south of Mali is Ivory Coast, where France plays a major role in cocoa production. The future of Mali matters to France far more than it matters to the United States.

What is most interesting is the absence of the United States in the fight, even if it is providing intelligence and other support, such as mobilizing ground forces from other African countries. The United States is not acting as if this is its fight; it is acting as if this is the fight of an ally, whom it might help in extremis, but not in a time when U.S. assistance is unnecessary. And if the French can't mount an effective operation in Mali, then little help can be given.

This changing approach is also evident in Syria, where the United States has systematically avoided anything beyond limited and covert assistance, and Libya, where the United States intervened after the French and British launched an attack they could not sustain. That was, I believe, a turning point, given the unsatisfactory outcome there. Rather than accepting a broad commitment against radical Islamism everywhere, the United States is allowing the burden to shift to powers that have direct interests in these areas.

Reversing a strategy is difficult. It is uncomfortable for any power to acknowledge that it has overreached, which the United States did both in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is even more difficult to acknowledge that the goals set by President George W. Bush in Iraq and Obama in Afghanistan lacked coherence. But clearly the war has run its course, and what is difficult is also obvious. We are not going to eliminate the threat of radical Islamism. The commitment of force to an unattainable goal twists national strategy out of shape and changes the fabric of domestic life. Obviously, overwatch must be in place against the emergence of an organization like al Qaeda, with global reach, sophisticated operatives and operational discipline. But this is very different from responding to jihadists in Mali, where the United States has limited interests and fewer resources.

Accepting an ongoing threat is also difficult. Mitigating the threat of an enemy rather than defeating the enemy outright goes against an impulse. But it is not something alien to American strategy. The United States is involved in the world, and it can't follow the founders' dictum of staying out of European struggles. But the United States has the option of following U.S. strategy in the two world wars. The United States was patient, accepted risks and shifted the burden to others, and when it acted, it acted out of necessity, with clearly defined goals matched by capabilities. Waiting until there is no choice but to go to war is not isolationism. Allowing others to carry the primary risk is not disengagement. Waging wars that are finite is not irresponsible.

The greatest danger of war is what it can do to one's own society, changing the obligations of citizens and reshaping their rights. The United States has always done this during wars, but those wars would always end. Fighting a war that cannot end reshapes domestic life permanently. A strategy that compels engagement everywhere will exhaust a country. No empire can survive the imperative of permanent, unwinnable warfare. It is fascinating to watch the French deal with Mali. It is even more fascinating to watch the United States wishing them well and mostly staying out of it. It has taken about 10 years, but here we can see the American system stabilize itself by mitigating the threats that can't be eliminated and refusing to be drawn into fights it can let others handle.

Avoiding the Wars That Never End is republished with permission of Stratfor.

Stratfor and Weronika Rosati

In this Stratfor article Ben West discusses the recent arrest of Dr. Brunon Kwiecien in Poland. Kwiecien is a chemist and a supporter of Anders Breivik who had planned to bomb the Polish parliament.

The article gives a good introduction to the case covering Kwiecien's bomb making abilities, the nature of his cell and how he was captured.

Like Breivik, Kwiecien's plotting reminded me of Wretchard's (Richard Fernandez) Fourth Conjecture which posited that any sort of a mass attack that could be planned by an Islamic terrorist could likewise be planned by a Western cell, and perhaps executed with greater competency.

As Fernandez put it in his post All for One and One for All:

With the proliferation of knowledge and the increasing sophistication of commercially available devices a time will eventually come when small groups can build nuclear or biological devices without state assistance. When private and personal WMD attacks become possible deterrence will lose effectiveness entirely.

But the situation will be even more dangerous than Coll suggests. Long before a faculty lounge in Islamabad or Riyadh realizes it can build a bomb alone and secretly, the same thought will have occurred to individuals in Tel Aviv, New Delhi or Palo Alto. Any Islamic group that believes it can attack New York deniably should convince itself that no similar group can nuke Mecca at the height of the pilgrim season. In fact, the whole problem that Coll describes should be generalized. The only thing worse than discovering that New York has been destroyed by persons unknown is to find that Islamabad has been vaporized by a group we've never heard of.

For the article's Hot Stratfor Babe I turned to Polish actresses and after reviewing all available research material I selected Weronika Rosati to receive the prestigious award.

Ms Rosati, who is the daughter of a member of the EU Parliament (I wonder if Nigel Farage has bounced jokes and insults off his skull?), started out on Polish television and quickly moved on to film. She has since moved to the U.S. where she is trying to get into American film with modest success so far.


Mimicking Breivik in Poland
By Ben West, November 29, 2012

Poland's Internal Security Agency announced Nov. 20 that it had arrested "Brunon K," a chemistry professor at the Agricultural University in Krakow who allegedly planned to attack the lower house of the Polish parliament. The arrest came Nov. 9, just two days before Warsaw's annual Independence Day parade, which authorities believe could have been another target. During the arrest, authorities seized ammonium nitrate fertilizer, high-powered, military-grade explosive RDX and other bomb-making equipment. They also seized several hundred rounds of ammunition, a bulletproof vest and a pistol.

Presumably, the suspect in question is Dr. Brunon Kwiecien, who has published multiple chemistry papers at the Agricultural University in Krakow, according to a Polish academic directory. Kwiecien openly espoused anti-government views and accused the Polish government and the European Commission of tyranny. Specifically, he condemned the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which has angered Internet freedom activists in Europe.

Kwiecien is also a self-proclaimed supporter of Norwegian ultranationalist terrorist Anders Breivik, who conducted a successful lone wolf attack in Oslo in 2011. Indeed, tactically Kwiecien's plot against the Polish government resembled Breivik's in many ways. But his was only the latest, certainly not the last, thwarted terrorist attack in Europe, where similar plots can be expected as the economic and political situation continues to worsen.

The Plot

Kwiecien allegedly considered Breivik's vehicle-borne improvised explosive device attack on Norway's parliament building a failure -- Breivik's killed only eight people and failed to inflict catastrophic structural damage on the building. Breivik used 1 metric ton of ammonium nitrate-based explosives, commonly called ANFO, or ammonium nitrate fuel oil, and parked his vehicle on the street, putting some distance between the VBIED and the building. Kwiecien intended to construct an explosive device using 4 metric tons of ANFO inside a tanker truck, crash through the gates of the parliament building and detonate the VBIED within the courtyard. Investigators believe that it would have been a suicide mission. Had he executed his attack successfully, he likely would have created a blast big enough to cause significant structural damage and loss of life, resulting in more damage and more deaths than Breivik's explosive device.

According to authorities, Kwiecien began planning for the attack between July and September. He apparently had traveled to Warsaw to surveil the area surrounding the building. The fact that there is fairly light security at the entrance to the parliament building may have encouraged Kwiecien to go forward with his plot.

What differentiates Kwiecien -- and Breivik before him -- from many other aspiring terrorists is his knowledge of how to make bombs. Most grassroots terrorists lack the requisite skillset and the wherewithal to build a viable explosive device. Reaching out for assistance in acquiring these skills exposes them to detection. For example, Adel Daoud was arrested Sept. 15 in Chicago by an undercover FBI agent, from whom Daoud had sought assistance to carry out his attack.

Kwiecien's Skillset

Kwiecien, a professional chemist, could have avoided Daoud's fate. He had the scientific background necessary to know how to make explosives. He also was an explosives enthusiast; allegedly he lost several of his fingers detonating a homemade bomb when he was a teenager. He had filmed his "experiments" over the past 10 years. Authorities also claim that Kwiecien had detonated a bomb containing as much as 250 kilograms (about 550 pounds) of explosives, though video footage shows explosive charges that were much smaller. Even if he had detonated a bomb of that size, there is no indication that he ever came close to experimenting with a bomb containing 4 metric tons of explosives. Thoroughly mixing 4 metric tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and diesel, the typical fuel oil in ANFO, is very difficult, but the challenge in constructing bombs that large is detonation. Generally, the larger the main charge is, the harder it is to achieve a simultaneous detonation and thus cause maximum damage.

Four metric tons of ANFO equates to more than 3,000 liters (800 gallons). Successfully igniting all that material requires the ignition of several smaller, high-powered detonation charges. Otherwise the device can fail or only partially detonate in what is referred to as a low-order explosion, where the ANFO is propelled away from the device rather than detonated. In 2010, Faisal Shahzad attempted to construct a device and detonate it in Times Square. But he was an amateur bombmaker. As such, he constructed a poorly made bomb, and the main charge failed to detonate accordingly.

It appears that Kwiecien was planning to use RDX for the detonation charges. Acquiring ANFO is relatively easy; it is made from legitimate agricultural products, and Kwiecien worked at an agricultural university. Acquiring RDX is far more difficult; it's a military-grade explosive that is much more regulated than fertilizer. But again, Kwiecien's chemistry background would have given him the skills needed to make homemade RDX instead of having to source it externally. Making it alone would shield him from law enforcement officials who monitor the acquisition of such materials.

Kwiecien's Mistakes

It is unclear whether Kwiecien could have built the bomb he intended to, but he was much more likely to have done so than other would-be terrorists. However, just because Kwiecien appears to have had the skillset to make a bomb without alerting the authorities does not mean that he kept the plot only to himself. In fact, he made several serious mistakes in plotting his attack that made him vulnerable to authorities.

Kwiecien brazenly advertised his anti-government ideology. He reportedly spoke openly with his students about bringing down the Polish government. He taught extracurricular classes on making explosives and claimed that officials had threatened to prosecute him if he didn't stop them. His wife, a biologist, alerted authorities when Kwiecien allegedly asked her how he could make a biological "dirty bomb."

In addition, Kwiecien used his own email address and identity for his online activity, where he made anti-government comments, praised Breivik and openly recruited like-minded people to join his cause. Reports indicate that Polish authorities' investigations into Breivik's connections in Poland may have also led to Kwiecien. All of these actions tipped off authorities, who likely had a fairly thick file on him by the time he was arrested.

Notably, none of his actions were necessarily grounds for prosecution. To gather more evidence, the Polish national police mounted an investigation that involved infiltrating his group. Excluding Kwiecien, the group comprised four members, two of whom were undercover agents. The other two were arrested.

Once undercover, the two operatives were able to collect details on Kwiecien's weapons and explosives acquisition efforts. Moreover, they would have been able to provide evidence that ties Kwiecien to the materials meant to be used in the attack. The operatives also could have kept tabs on Kwiecien and alerted authorities when they believed he was moving closer to an attack.

Kwiecien's motivations for expanding his group are unknown, but ultimately it was his desire for recruitment that compromised him.

Breivik's Influence

Like Breivik, Kwiecien embodied the rare combination of ideological fervor and technical capability. But unlike Breivik, he did not strictly adhere to operational security standards. Breivik went to great lengths to maintain operational security, seeking help only when he absolutely needed it -- like when he traveled to purchase firearms. Kwiecien flaunted his capabilities and his ideology, making him a bigger target for authorities.

Kwiecien was also a copycat who sought to conduct the same attack that Breivik did, only on a larger scale. European authorities -- indeed, law enforcement agencies around the world -- have studied the Breivik case for more than a year. Thus they probably became better at identifying attacks that employ the same tactics.

Perhaps most important, Kwiecien's case also shows that Breivik's call to action has been heard. In his manifesto, Breivik appealed to other like-minded individuals to form cells and fight multiculturalism in Europe. Individuals like Breivik and Kwiecien, who combine capability and ideology, are rare. But Europe has a skilled workforce that could produce similarly capable extremists.

Indeed, Breivik and Kwiecien are not alone in their ultranationalist ideals. On Nov. 23, Swedish extremist Peter Mangs was sentenced to life in prison for a series of killings targeting immigrants around Malmo, a city in southern Sweden. Mangs killed for several years before he was caught, indicating that he was well disciplined and practiced operational security.

The conditions of Europe are conducive for extremism. As national economies worsen and European institutions weaken, there will be more cause, in the eyes of extremists, to lash out against the state and against Europe. Such threats are not found only among ultranationalists. Left-wing groups and anarchist cells also pose a threat, as evidenced in Greece and Italy. Kwiecien certainly will not be the last extremist to plot an attack in Europe, and the more like-minded individuals who take up the cause, the higher the chances are for more attacks

Mimicking Breivik in Poland is republished with permission of Stratfor.

Stratfor and Sally Field

In this Stratfor article Scott Stewart lays out the terminology Stratfor uses to differentiate al Qaeda, al Qaeda franchises and other jihadists. He kicks off his discussion by mentioning the use of the term al Qaeda in the American Presidential race. That seems a very tenuous hook to me, since Americans use the term al Qaeda and jihadists quite differently than common usage in the U.S.

While Stewart's taxonomy of terror groups is interesting, and no doubt more rigorous than the American shorthand which conflates the two, it should be accepted that how Americans use the terms in their political discourse to understand such campaign positions.

There is a certain rhetorical dishonesty in trying to shift from common usage to claiming you were actually employing a more rigorous and technical use of language. That's what is offensive about Obama's attempt to elevate the throwaway clause “No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation” over his weeks long argument that it was the youTube video that sparked riots and then the attack.

Stewart should have avoided the campaign issue altogether. While he may not have intended it, his statemt, "As with most political rhetoric, both claims bear elements of truth, but the truth depends largely on how al Qaeda and jihadism are defined" has no bearing on what transpired during the debate and comes across looking like a weak setup for a rationalization of Obama's dishonesty.

 Since the article dealt with numerous terrorist identities the old pop-psychology fad of multiple personalities came to mind. That led to the movie Sybil and so its female lead, Sally Field, was the only choice for the honor of being this article's Hot Stratfor Babe.

Ms Field started out on TV playing the annoyingly perky teenager Gidget, and followed that up with The Flying Nun, another ridiculous character. In spite of such preposterous type casting to start her career she's flourished as an actress including an academy Award as Best Actress for her part in Places in the Heart. She continues to work steadily to this day.
     

Defining al Qaeda
By Scott Stewart, October 18, 2012

The Obama administration's efforts to counter the threat posed by al Qaeda and the wider jihadist movement have been a contentious topic in the U.S. presidential race. Political rhetoric abounds on both sides; administration officials claim that al Qaeda has been seriously crippled, while some critics of the administration allege that the group is stronger than ever. As with most political rhetoric, both claims bear elements of truth, but the truth depends largely on how al Qaeda and jihadism are defined. Unfortunately, politicians and the media tend to define al Qaeda loosely and incorrectly.

The jihadist threat will persist regardless of who is elected president, so understanding the actors involved is critical. But a true understanding of those actors requires taxonomical acuity. It seems worthwhile, then, to revisit Stratfor's definitions of al Qaeda and the wider jihadist movement.

A Network of Networks

Al Qaeda, the group established by Osama bin Laden and his colleagues, was never very large -- there were never more than a few hundred actual members. We often refer to this group, now led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, as the al Qaeda core or al Qaeda prime. While the group's founders trained tens of thousands of men at their camps in Afghanistan and Sudan, they initially viewed themselves as a vanguard organization working with kindred groups to facilitate the jihad they believed was necessary to establish a global Islamic caliphate. Most of the men trained at al Qaeda camps were members of other organizations or were grassroots jihadists. The majority of them received basic paramilitary training, and only a select few were invited to receive additional training in terrorist tradecraft skills such as surveillance, document forgery and bombmaking. Of this select group, only a few men were invited to join the al Qaeda core organization.

Bin Laden envisioned another purpose for al Qaeda: leading the charge against corrupt rulers in the Muslim world and against the United States, which he believed supported corrupt Muslim rulers. Al Qaeda sought to excise the United States from the Muslim world in much the same way that Hezbollah drove U.S. forces out of Lebanon and Somalia forced the U.S. withdrawal from Mogadishu.

Al Qaeda became a network of networks -- a trait demonstrated not only by its training methods but also in bin Laden's rhetoric. For example, bin Laden's 1998 "World Islamic Front" statement, which declared jihad against Jews and Crusaders, was signed by al-Zawahiri (who at the time was leading the Egyptian Islamic Jihad) and leaders of other groups, including the Egyptian Islamic Group, Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Pakistan and the Jihad Movement of Bangladesh.

Following the 9/11 attacks, the United States applied against the al Qaeda core the full pressure of its five counterterrorism levers: intelligence, military, law enforcement, diplomacy and financial sanctions. As a result, many al Qaeda members, eventually including bin Laden, were captured or killed and their assets were frozen. Such measures have ensured that the group remains small for operational security concerns. The remaining members of the group mostly are lying low in Pakistan near the Afghan border, and their isolation there has severely degraded their ability to conduct attacks. The al Qaeda core is now relegated to producing propaganda for guidance and inspiration for other jihadist elements. Despite the disproportionate amount of media attention given to statements from al-Zawahiri and Adam Gadahn, the al Qaeda core constitutes only a very small part of the larger jihadist movement. In fact, it has not conducted a successful terrorist attack in years.

However, the core group has not been destroyed. It could regenerate if the United States eased its pressure, but we believe that will be difficult given the loss of the charismatic bin Laden and his replacement by the irascible al-Zawahiri.

In any case, the jihadist movement transcends the al Qaeda core. In fact, Stratfor for years published an annual forecast of al Qaeda, but beginning in 2009, we intentionally changed the title of the forecast to reflect the isolation and marginalization of the al Qaeda core and the ascendance of other jihadist actors. We believed our analysis needed to focus less on the al Qaeda core and more on the truly active and significant elements of the jihadist movement, including regional groups that have adopted the al Qaeda name and the array of grassroots jihadists.

Franchises and Grassroots

An element of the jihadist movement that is often loosely referred to as al Qaeda is the worldwide network of local or regional militant groups that have assumed al Qaeda's name or ideology. In many cases, the relationships between the leadership of these groups and the al Qaeda core began in the 1980s and 1990s.

Some groups have publicly claimed allegiance to the al Qaeda core, becoming what we refer to as franchise groups. These groups include al Qaeda in Iraq, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Even though these franchises bear the al Qaeda name, they are locally owned and operated. This means that the local commanders have significant latitude in how closely they follow the guidance and philosophy of the al Qaeda core.

Some franchise group leaders, such as AQAP's Nasir al-Wahayshi, maintain strong relationships with the al Qaeda core and are very closely aligned with the core's philosophy. Other leaders, such as Abu Musab Abd al-Wadoud of AQIM, are more distanced. In fact, AQIM has seen severe internal fighting over these doctrinal issues, and several former leaders of Algeria's Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat left the group because of this conflict. Further, it is widely believed that the death of Somali al Qaeda leader Fazul Abdullah Mohammed was arranged by leaders of Somali jihadist group al Shabaab, which he had criticized sharply.

The last and broadest element of the global jihadist movement often referred to as al Qaeda is what Stratfor refers to as grassroots jihadists. These are individuals or small cells of individuals that are inspired by the al Qaeda core -- or increasingly, by its franchise groups -- but that may have little or no actual connection to these groups. Some grassroots jihadists travel to places such as Pakistan or Yemen to receive training from the franchise groups. Other grassroots militants have no direct contact with other jihadist elements.

The core, the franchises and the grassroots jihadists are often interchangeably referred to as al Qaeda, but there are important differences among these actors that need to be recognized.

Important Distinctions

There are some other important distinctions that inform our terminology and our analysis. Not all jihadists are linked to al Qaeda, and not all militant Islamists are jihadists. Islamists are those who believe society is best governed by Islamic law, or Sharia. Militant Islamists are those who advocate the use of force to establish Sharia. Militant Islamists are found in both Islamic sects. Al Qaeda is a Sunni militant Islamist group, but Hezbollah is a Shiite militant Islamist group. Moreover, not all militant Muslims are Islamists. Some take up arms for tribal, territorial, ethnic or nationalistic reasons, or for a combination of reasons.

In places such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya and northern Mali, several militant groups are fighting foreign forces, their government or each other -- and sometimes all of the above. Some of these groups are jihadists, some are tribal militias, some are brigands and smugglers, and others are nationalists. Identifying, sorting and classifying these groups can be very difficult, and sometimes alliances shift or overlap. For example, Yemen's southern separatists will sometimes work with tribal militias or AQAP to fight against the government; other times, they fight against these would-be allies. We have seen similar dynamics in northern Mali among groups such as AQIM, Ansar Dine, the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa, various Tuareg groups and other tribal militias in the region.

Taxonomy becomes even more difficult when a group uses multiple names, or when multiple groups share a name. Groups adopt different names for discretion, confusion or public relations purposes. AQAP called itself Ansar al-Shariah during its fight to take over cities in southern Yemen and to govern the territory. But radical cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri, who was arrested in the United Kingdom in 2004 and extradited to the United States in 2012, has long led a movement likewise called Ansar al-Shariah. Even the Libyan jihadist militia that attacked the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi uses the same name. But just because these groups share a name, and just because members or leaders of the groups know each other, does not necessarily mean that they are chapters of the same group or network of groups, or that they even subscribe to the same ideology.

As we mentioned long before Moammar Gadhafi was ousted in Libya, jihadists and other militants thrive in power vacuums. This assertion has proved true in Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia, and more recently in Libya, northern Mali and now Syria. Weapons flooding into such regions only compound the problem.

Militant Islamists have seized the opportunity to grow in influence in such places, as have the subset of militant Islamists we call jihadists. So in this context, while the al Qaeda core has been crippled, other portions of the jihadist movement are thriving. This is especially so among those that aspire to mount local insurgencies rather than those more concerned with planning transnational attacks. The nuances are important because as the composition and objectives of jihadist groups change, so do their methods of attack.

Defining al Qaeda is republished with permission of Stratfor.

Stratfor and Daryl Hannah

In this Stratfor article Scott Stewart discusses the evolution of terrorist methodology from the 1800s through the current day and suggests some possible emerging trends.

He breaks his discussion into documents, explosives and databases. In each area he gives brief discussion of their evolution, ending with a discussion of current trends.

Since the word evolution was mentioned, my mind naturally turned to movies featuring cave babes in fur bikinis as I sought the article's Hot Stratfor Babe. With that in mind, I selected Daryl Hannah who played Ayla, the female lead in Clan of the Cave Bear.

I saw Clan of the Cave Bear, but must confess I don't remember much about it other then it was ridiculous. It's made more ridiculous than the usual 'Cave Babes in Fur Bikinis' movie because it tries to be serious. For example, the characters grunt in a made up cave man language with subtitles and such like.

Anyway, if I recall correctly, as a child blonde Ayla is separated from her tribe and ends up being adopted by a tribe of doltish brunettes. She grows up to be Daryl Hannah, who gets a ton of grief because she's blonde. Lucky for her, she is a sort of feminist super genius who invents nearly everything: fire, the wheel, whatever. In fact, I think Ayla even wrote the original lyrics to I am Woman, only they were a series of grunts before they got translated to English for Helen Reddy to sing.

Clan of the Cave Bear was a flop, but Ms Hannah has had a very successful Hollywood career, although she's increasingly having to do television these days.

On the personal side she's been an activist for several years, getting herself arrested at on protest or another. Her latest has been getting arrested protesting the Keystone Pipeline. Gee, thanks Daryl -- I appreciate your efforts to get me to pay the Saudi's more for their oil. 


Evolution and Trends in Terrorism Tradecraft
By Scott Stewart, October 11, 2012

The terrorist tradecraft discussed in last week's Security Weekly does not happen in isolation. The practitioners of terrorist tradecraft conduct their activities in the midst of other people -- the authorities attempting to identify them and thwart their plans as well as civilians. Terrorist tradecraft also does not remain static. It is constantly evolving. These changes are prompted not only by countermeasures put in place to prevent terrorist attacks but also by advances in technology -- a powerful force that can serve to either nullify old tradecraft practices or to provide new tools to the purveyors of terror.

Terrorism is an enduring reality. While geopolitical changes may cause a shift in the actors who employ terrorism as a tactic, terrorism will continue to be used no matter what the next geopolitical cycle brings. It is, and will continue to be, a tactic used by militant actors who want to confront a militarily superior enemy. Focusing on the tradecraft used in attacks and charting its changes and trends not only permits observers to understand what is happening and why but also provides an opportunity to forecast what is coming next.

Documents

In the early terrorist plots of the late 1800s, many of the foundational tradecraft requirements were aided by the general simplicity of the times. Among the foundational tradecraft requirements discussed last week was procuring identification documents. Public records were very sparse, did not usually contain people's photographs and tended to be decentralized and not easily searched. (This is still true in some parts of the world today, such as in Afghanistan and Somalia.) There were no universal identification cards such as driver licenses, because automobiles had not yet become common. Passports and visas were not widely required for travel until after World War I, and even then the records of passport and visa issuance as well as traveler entries and exits were localized, hand-written entries into ledgers and were hard to search.

During this time, it was not difficult for Irish Fenian, nihilist or anarchist terrorist actors to travel, rent safe-houses or raise and transfer funds. Communication was certainly more difficult for everyone at that time -- authorities as well as terrorists. The mail system was slow, and while telegrams could be sent quickly, they were seen by many people. Law enforcement agencies did not communicate or coordinate very well across jurisdictional lines within one country, much less on an international scale.

During World War I, concerns over spies and saboteurs caused important changes to international travel, including stricter passport and visa requirements. This also had an impact on terrorist actors, such as Irish Republican Army members traveling to and from the United States or England, but early passports, visas and other identification documents were often hand-written and easily forged or altered. During this era, it was also still quite easy to assume the identity of an infant or young child who had died, because birth and death records were not often cross-referenced -- especially if they happened in different locations. This practice is referred to as an infant death identity in document-fraud investigations. Nazi and Soviet espionage agents used infant death identity quite frequently, which resulted in changes to the way records were kept, but domestic and international terrorist operatives continued to use infant death identities into the 1960s and 1970s.

Advances in technology in the 20th century allowed countries to make their identification documents more resistant, but not immune, to counterfeiting and alteration. The real difficulty in using counterfeit or altered documents started when the documents were linked to a central computerized database. This meant that counterfeit passports and visas did not show up in the databases and allowed a quick photo comparison to ensure that passports with altered photos could not be as easily used. In 1988, Japanese Red Army bombmaker Yu Kikumura was able to enter the United States using an altered Japanese passport.

In 1992, al Qaeda bombmaker Ahmed Ajaj was arrested trying to come through immigration at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport using a Swedish passport in another name altered to bear his photo. His partner, Abdul Basit, ditched the altered passport he used to board the flight in Karachi, Pakistan, and used an authentic Iraqi passport in the name Ramzi Yousef to claim political asylum. In the 9/11 plot, and in all the follow-on al Qaeda plots directed against the United Sates, al Qaeda operatives have used authentic travel documents to enter, or attempt to enter, the United States. Some of the 9/11 operatives did commit document fraud in relation to driver licenses and state identification cards, but as outlined in the 9/11 Commission Report, that fraud almost resulted in the unraveling of the plot.

Changes in technology and enforcement in the United States and Europe have caused changes in identity and travel tradecraft for transnational jihadists, who are now searching for "clean skin" operatives who are unknown to law enforcement and who have the ability to travel internationally using legitimate travel documents.

Explosives

Bombing has been a staple of terrorism since Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators' failed attempt to destroy the British Parliament in 1605 in the so-called Gunpowder Plot. The invention of dynamite in 1867 was a very big boon for early terrorists, who no longer had to use black powder, a low explosive, as the main charge in their devices. Dynamite was not only more stable and less sensitive to moisture than black powder but was also more powerful. Dynamite was widely used by Irish Fenians in their attacks, but perhaps the image of the anarchist bombthrower is the most iconic of that period.

In the age of modern terrorism, bombmakers have had the luxury of access to high-powered military explosives such as TNT, C-4 and Semtex. Technologies such as shaped charges, platter charges and explosively formed penetrators have also increased the impact of these powerful explosive compounds. Another development that has greatly altered the art of bombmaking has been the advent of microelectronics. Bombmakers can use sophisticated timers to activate a device days or even weeks after it is placed. They can also use sensors that detect motion, light, the presence of metal objects or changes in altitude in order to detonate the explosive device. Command-detonated devices using radio signals or cell phones have also been widely employed.

Perhaps one of the most influential bombmakers in the modern terrorist era is Abu Ibrahim, a former member of Black September, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the 15 May Organization. Ibrahim is often referred to as the "grandfather of all bombmakers" for his innovative improvised explosive device design and his willingness to train other bombmakers in his dark arts. Ibrahim was an early adopter of electronics in his designs.

During the 1970s and 1980s, state sponsorship did a lot to help advance bombmaking tradecraft, as sabotage experts from the Soviet KGB and the East German Stasi passed on training and technology. (The Eastern bloc was also a very important source of funding and identification documents during this period.) In addition, state sponsorship meant that sponsors, such as Libya, could use the diplomatic pouch to transport weapons and explosive components to terrorist operatives in places like London and Paris.

Controls on the purchase of explosives, and even on items like ammonium nitrate fertilizer, which can be readily used to make homemade explosive mixtures, have made it more difficult in recent years to make improvised explosive mixtures. This has caused bombmakers to change to mixtures made from more readily available precursors, such as acetone and peroxide. But these mixtures tend to be not only more dangerous to brew -- the Palestinians refer to triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, as "the mother of Satan" -- they also have a limited shelf life, are less stable and more difficult to transport and correctly synthesize. In 2009, would-be New York City subway bomber Najibullah Zazi was frustrated in his attempts to manufacture viable TATP.

In the realm of targets and tactics, we've talked elsewhere of the arms race in aviation security and how it has caused the threat to aircraft to evolve, with the next likely step being non-metallic explosive devices hidden inside the bodies of suicide attackers. There has also been an evolution in the targeting of Western interests abroad. Embassies have become harder targets and Western hotels have been increasingly more desirable targets, although the Sept. 11, 2012, attack in Benghazi may shift terrorists' focus back to vulnerable diplomatic missions in volatile locations.

Databases

Perhaps one of the most powerful inhibitors of terrorist tradecraft has been the use of computerized databases, allowing authorities to crunch a lot of data. One of the first well-documented uses of computers to locate terrorist suspects was the massive effort undertaken by the German Federal Criminal Police in the 1970s to combat the Red Army Faction. The German police created a database and then cross-referenced its information on a wide variety of indices. They then created a profile of the Red Army Faction safe-house with features such as young people living together, paying their rent and utility bills in cash and not registering with the local government or registering their motor vehicles. When a computer search identified addresses that matched the profile, they then dispatched detectives to investigate these possible safe-houses in person. This campaign was very successful in helping round up the first generation of Red Army Faction operatives.

Lists of terrorist suspects and their aliases have also proved quite useful in inhibiting terrorist travel, but it has not been without its failures or criticism. The U.S. State Department first adopted a database called TIPOFF in the 1980s designed to prevent terrorists from getting visas. The system was later turned it into the Visas Viper system after the 9/11 attacks. The United States has created the Terrorist Screening Center, which is charged with consolidating all the various U.S. government watch lists as well as administering the controversial terrorist watch list and the no-fly list.

Computers are also being used to monitor terrorist communication, whether by telephone, satellite phone or the Internet. But like the watch lists, these efforts have proved to be quite controversial.

Seizing or freezing bank accounts associated with known terrorists and efforts to crack down on charities that were funding terrorist groups have been somewhat successful in limiting the money moving to terrorist entities. But the presence of significant informal money transfer networks has made it impossible to totally stop the flow. The ability of terrorist groups to use narcotics sales and other criminal activity to fund themselves has also been hard to stop.

Trends

Since the 9/11 attacks, the United States and its allies have spent billions of dollars on security improvements and have made great efforts to increase security and to counter the tradecraft used by terrorist groups. It is now more difficult for terrorist operatives to travel to the United States and Europe -- as evidenced by the lack of serious attacks and by the calls of groups such as al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the al Qaeda core group for grassroots terrorist operatives to conduct simple attacks where they are rather than travel overseas for training or to wage jihad. It has also led them to recruit individuals who have travel documents like Richard Reid, Najibullah Zazi and Faisal Shahzad for attacks rather than send well-trained operatives to conduct them.

This inability to conduct attacks in the West and the frustration it causes, along with the downfall of the transnational al Qaeda core organization, may be causing the remaining jihadist groups to focus more on operations in their local areas -- places where they have the skilled operatives and materiel to conduct successful attacks.

This means that Western diplomatic missions, hotels and businesses located in these areas will remain vulnerable to attack. With these militant groups in possession of shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles like the SA-7, there is also a lingering concern over the possibility of an attack against a Western aircraft in such areas.

Evolution and Trends in Terrorism Tradecraft is republished with permission of Stratfor.

In harm's way

As we enjoy this Memorial Day weekend it is well to remember that, sad to say, one by one other names are being added to the list to be carved into marble. In the above video a convoy in Helmand Province, Afghanistan is being shelled by mortars. It is sobering footage.   
  

Stratfor and Pia Zadora

In his last Security Weekly column Scott Stewart talked about, from the perspective of terrorist groups, the influence that exceptional individuals have on a tactical level planning and execution. 

However, as in any organization, terror groups have far more average individuals the exceptional leaders, as well as outright bunglers. In this Stratfor article Stewart recounts some of larger mistakes made by the recent crop of terrorists. 

However, he does remind us that even an incompetent individual, if led by a much more talented person, can still be extremely dangerous. The beginning of the Strafor article is excerpted below, with a link to the entire article at the end of the excerpt.

Last week, when exceptional individuals was Stewart's topic, I picked Mary Pickford for the honor because she was the first female movie star. This week, considering the topic, I decided I needed to look to bad actresses. Talk about an embarrassment of riches. Naturally, Demi Moore, Bo Derek and Madonna all put up valiant fights in the Worst Actress category, but in the end Pia Zadora edged them all out for the honor of being the article's Hot Stratfor Babe.

Do I really need to explain why? From Ms Zadora's first film, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians to whatever her latest film is, her career has been pretty much a slew of crappy movies she struggled mightily, but failed at, acting in.  

One bit of irony -- Pia lived for a long time in Pickfair, which was the estate of Mary Pickford. Ah, the mysterious chains that bind Hot Stratfor Babes together. 


Terrorism and the Not-So-Exceptional Individual
By Scott Stewart, May 24, 2012

In last week's Security Weekly, we used a thwarted underwear bomb plot, as well as the U.S. government's easing the rules of engagement for unmanned aerial vehicle strikes in Yemen, as an opportunity to examine the role of exceptional individuals in militant groups that conduct terrorist attacks. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's (AQAP's) innovative bombmaker, Ibrahim al-Asiri, is one such individual.

Reported by AP on May 7, the news of the thwarted underwear plot overshadowed another event in Yemen that occurred May 6: a U.S. airstrike in Shabwa province that killed Fahd al-Quso, a Yemeni militant wanted for his involvement in the attack against the USS Cole in October 2000. Al-Quso appeared in a video released by AQAP's al-Malahim Media in May 2010, during which he threatened attacks against the continental United States, its embassy in Yemen and warships in the waters surrounding Yemen.

The media and the U.S. government frequently mention al-Quso's involvement in the USS Cole bombing, but they rarely discuss his precise duty the day of the attack. Al-Quso had been tasked to record the attack from ashore so that the video could be used later in al Qaeda propaganda. Unfortunately for the group, al-Quso was derelict in his duty; he slept through his alarm, and the attack went unrecorded.

Oversleeping a terrorist attack was not al-Quso's only operational gaffe. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, al-Quso had been dispatched in January 2001 to transport money to al Qaeda facilitator Walid bin Attash in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The money reportedly funded the travel and initial living expenses of 9/11 operatives Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khaled al-Midhar. However, al-Quso failed to get a Malaysian visa. He was stuck in Bangkok, and bin Attash, al-Hazmi and al-Midhar had to meet him in Bangkok to retrieve the funds.

If al-Asiri gives cause to discuss the role of the exceptional individual in terrorism operations, al-Quso provides us the opportunity to discuss the not-so exceptional individual -- and how these maladroit actors nonetheless pose a threat.

Tradecraft Errors

The history of al Qaeda's war against the United States is replete with examples of jihadist operations that were foiled due to tradecraft failures. In September 1992, Ahmed Ajaj attempted to enter the United States with a poorly altered Swedish passport while carrying a suitcase full of bombmaking instructions and other training manuals and videos. Both lapses in judgment are characteristic of a novice. An alert customs inspector stopped Ajaj, who later was detained and charged with passport fraud.

Ajaj was traveling from Osama bin Laden's Khaldan training camp in Afghanistan with Abdel Basit, also known as Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center attack. An immigration inspector likewise stopped Basit, but he requested political asylum. Because he was not carrying a suitcase full of bombmaking manuals or using an altered passport, Basit later was released pending a hearing on his asylum claim. (Had he remained in custody, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing would not have been conducted.)

In another instance of tradecraft error, the would-be millennium bomber, Ahmed Ressam, fell victim to "burn syndrome" while attempting to enter the United States from Canada in December 1999. Ressam panicked when approached by a U.S. customs inspector, who was performing a routine check of the ferry on which he was traveling. The inspector was unaware that Ressam was an Islamist militant or that he was in operational mode. In fact, when Ressam lost his composure, she assumed he was smuggling drugs rather than explosives.

The 9/11 Commission Report also detailed a number of errors committed by the supposed al Qaeda elite prior to hijacking the four aircraft on 9/11. Mohammed Atta was cited for driving with an invalid license and failed to appear at the subsequent court hearing, causing a bench warrant to be issued for his arrest. Moreover, known al Qaeda associates al-Hamzi and al-Midhar entered the United States under their own names. (A flight instructor even characterized al-Hamzi and al-Midhar as "Dumb and Dumber," saying they were "clueless" as would-be pilots.) Any of these errors could have brought down the entire 9/11 operation.

More recently, we have seen cases where individuals such as Faisal Shahzad and Najibullah Zazi have shown the intent, but not the ability, to conduct attacks. While Shahzad was able to assemble a large vehicle-borne improvised explosive device without detection, the design of the device's firing chain was seriously flawed -- clearly the work of a novice. U.S. government surveillance of Zazi's activities determined that he was an inexperienced bombmaker and that he could not create the proper chemical mixture to manufacture effective triacetone triperoxide (TATP). This is common problem for novice bombmakers. We have seen several planned attacks, such as the London bomb attempt on July 21, 2005, fizzle out due to bad batches of TATP.

In another example, U.S. Army Pfc. Naser Jason Abdo was arrested and charged with planning an attack on Ft. Hood in July 2011. Abdo was brought to the attention of the authorities after purchasing smokeless powder to be used in an improvised explosive device. His furtive demeanor caused a store clerk to report him to the police.

Read more: Terrorism and the Not-So-Exceptional Individual | Stratfor

Stratfor and Mary Pickford

While Stratfor generally views things through the lens of strategy, where geopolitics and historical forces shape trends, in this article Scott Stewart narrows his focus to the tactical realm, where exceptional individuals have a greater apparent impact on events.

He reviews the history of Islamic terrorism and discusses individuals who had a great impact on its development, and then goes on to discuss current terrorists who are very influential.

Naturally, killing or capturing these 'exceptional' individuals can degrade terrorist organizations. The beginning of the article is excerpted below, with a link to the entire article at the end of the excerpt.

For the article's Hot Stratfor Babe I searched for an exceptional actress among such luminaries as Megan Fox, Lindsey Lohan and Madonna. Naturally, those immense talents were hard to reject, but in the end I selected Mary Pickford for the honor over them all.

Mary Pickford, although her characters have aged badly, truly was an exceptional actress. She was Hollywood's first leading lady and, because of her popularity, was instrumental in driving the price of an actor's contract up. She also produced films and was one of the actors who gathered to form United Artists.

Sadly for her the Talkies were not kind to her. she was turning 30 at the time and, regardless of her age, her silent characters didn't fit the new style of elegant female leads. After retiring from acting she sunk into seclusion and alcoholism, dying in 1979.    


Terrorism and the Exceptional Individual
By Scott Stewart, May 17, 2012

There has been a lot of chatter in intelligence and academic circles about al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) bombmaker Ibrahim al-Asiri and his value to AQAP. The disclosure last week of a thwarted AQAP plot to attack U.S. airliners using an improved version of an "underwear bomb" used in the December 2009 attempted attack aboard a commercial airplane and the disclosure of the U.S. government's easing of the rules of engagement for unmanned aerial vehicle strikes in Yemen played into these discussions. People are debating how al-Asiri's death would affect the organization. A similar debate undoubtedly will erupt if AQAP leader Nasir al-Wahayshi is captured or killed.

AQAP has claimed that al-Asiri trained others in bombmaking, and the claim makes sense. Furthermore, other AQAP members have received training in constructing improvised explosive devices (IEDs) while training and fighting in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan. This means that al-Asiri is not the only person within the group who can construct an IED. However, he has demonstrated creativity and imagination. His devices consistently have been able to circumvent existing security measures, even if they have not always functioned as intended. We believe this ingenuity and imagination make al-Asiri not merely a bombmaker, but an exceptional bombmaker.

Likewise, al-Wahayshi is one of hundreds -- if not thousands -- of men currently associated with AQAP. He has several deputies and numerous tactical field commanders in various parts of Yemen. Jihadists have had a presence in Yemen for decades, and after the collapse of al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, numerous Saudi migrants fleeing the Saudi government augmented this presence. However, al-Wahayshi played a singular role in pulling these disparate jihadist elements together to form a unified and cohesive militant organization that has been involved not only in several transnational terrorist attacks but also in fighting an insurgency that has succeeded in capturing and controlling large areas of territory. He is an exceptional leader.

Individuals like al-Asiri and al-Wahayshi play critical roles in militant groups. History has shown that the loss of exceptional individuals such as these makes a big difference in efforts to defeat such organizations.

Exceptional Individuals

One of Stratfor's core geopolitical tenets is that at the strategic level, geography is critical to shaping the limits of what is possible -- and impossible -- for states and nations to achieve in the long run. Quite simply, historically, the strategic political and economic dynamics created by geography are far more significant than the individual leader or personality, no matter how brilliant. For example, in the U.S. Civil War, Robert E. Lee was a shrewd general with a staff of exceptional military officers. However, geographic and economic reality meant that the North was bound to win the civil war despite the astuteness and abilities of Lee and his staff.

But as the size of an organization and the period of time under consideration shrink, geopolitics is little more than a rough guide. At the tactical level, intelligence takes over from geopolitics, and individuals' abilities become far more important in influencing smaller events and trends within the greater geopolitical flow. This is the level where exceptional military commanders can win battles through courage and brilliance, where exceptional businessmen can revolutionize the way business is done through innovative new products or ways of selling those products and where the exceptional individuals can execute terrorist tradecraft in a way that allows them to kill scores or even hundreds of victims.

Leadership is important in any type of organization, but it is especially important in entrepreneurial organizations, which are fraught with risk and require unique vision, innovation and initiative. For example, hundreds of men founded automobile companies in the early 1900s, but Henry Ford was an exceptional individual because of his vision to make automobiles a widely available mass-produced commodity rather than just a toy for the rich. In computer technology, Steve Jobs was exceptional for his ability to design devices with an aesthetic form that appealed to consumers, and Michael Dell was exceptional for his vision of bypassing traditional sales channels and selling computers directly to customers.

These same leadership characteristics of vision, daring, innovation and initiative are evident in the exceptional individuals who have excelled in the development and application of terrorist tradecraft. Some examples of exceptional individuals in the terrorism realm are Ali Hassan Salameh, the operations chief of Black September, who not only revolutionized the form that terrorist organizations take by instituting the use of independent, clandestine cells, but also was a visionary in designing theatrical attacks intended for international media consumption. Some have called Palestinian militant leader Abu Ibrahim the "grandfather of all bombmakers" for his innovative IED designs during his time with Black September, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and his own group, the 15 May Organization. Ibrahim was known for creating sophisticated devices that used plastic explosives and a type of electronic timer called an "e-cell" that could be set for an extended delay. Another terrorism innovator was Hezbollah's Imad Mughniyeh, who helped pioneer the use of large suicide truck bombs to attack hardened targets, such as military barracks and embassies.

In the jihadist realm, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is being tried by a military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was such an individual. Not only did Mohammed mastermind the 9/11 attacks for al Qaeda in which large hijacked aircraft were transformed into guided missiles, but he also was the operational planner behind the coordinated attacks against two U.S. embassies in August 1998 and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Mohammed's other innovations included the idea to use modular IEDs concealed in baby dolls to attack 10 aircraft in a coordinated attack (Operation Bojinka) and the shoe bomb plot. Mohammed's video beheading of journalist Daniel Pearl in February 2002 started a grisly trend that was followed not only by jihadists in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia but also by combatants in Mexico's drug war.

Read more: Terrorism and the Exceptional Individual | Stratfor

Stratfor and Cleo Moore

In this Stratfor article Scott Stewart examines the various bits and pieces of information we know about recent terrorist activity and considers where the clues may lead.

Transnational terrorist continue to be fixated on airplanes. As Scott points out there has been a series of moves and counter-moves between security forces and jihadists as the jihadists continue to probe for methods to get concealed bombs aboard airplanes.

The beginning of the article is excerpted below, with a link to the full article at the end of the excerpt.

Since bombs are involved, I turned to Hollywood blonde bombshells for the article's Hot Stratfor Babe. After much research and careful deliberation I selected Cleo Moore for the honor.

Ms Moore was one of many actresses promoted as being another Marylin Monroe. However,  regardless of the studio's PR, she primarily acted in B movies, where she frequently payed the "bad" girl. Her movie career was unspectacular, and she retired from acting in 1957 at the age of 33. She was to go on to have a successful career in real estate.

Of interest, at the age of 15 she married Palmer Long, the son of the Huey "Kingfish" Long. Her family was apparently deeply involved in Louisiana's Democratic party. She divorced Palmer 6 weeks after marrying him.


Searching for Connections Amid Terrorist Threats
By Scott Stewart, May 10, 2012

In past Security Weeklies we have often noted how analyzing terrorism is like assembling a puzzle. After an attack has transpired, it is easier to piece the disparate clues together because you have the luxury of knowing what the finished puzzle should look like. You know the target, the method of attack, the time, the place, etc. These factors frame your approach to the bits of evidence you gather and allow you to assemble them into a cohesive, logical framework. While there will certainly be missing pieces at times, having the reference point of the attack itself is helpful to investigators and analysts.

On the other hand, analyzing a potential threat before an attack takes place is far more difficult. It is like sifting through pieces of thousands of different puzzles, all jumbled together in one big pile, and attempting to create a complete picture without knowing what the end result -- the attack -- will look like. Sometimes pieces look like they could be related, but it is often difficult to determine if they really are without having the picture of the finished attack and the important framework for investigative reference: target, method of attack, time and place. It is often easy to look back after an attack and criticize authorities for not making a critical connection, but it is difficult to piece things together before the attack occurs without the assistance of hindsight.

Over the past few weeks we have been studying a number of interesting puzzle pieces pertaining to potential threats to U.S. interests by transnational jihadists. It is currently unclear if they all fit together to form a seamless narrative, but the implications of a potential convergence are too big to ignore. We feel compelled to write about this potential convergence in much the same way we did in September 2009, when we discussed the possibility of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) using innovative bomb designs to bring down passenger aircraft rather than to assassinate individuals. The earlier convergence came to fruition on Dec. 25, 2009, when AQAP attempted to destroy a Northwest/Delta flight from Amsterdam to Detroit using an improvised explosive device (IED) concealed in the suicide operative's underwear. Time will tell if the current grouping of events is a true picture of what is about to happen or is simply a false positive.

The Pieces

The pieces of the current case began emerging a few weeks ago, before the May 2 anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death. Reports began to surface that AQAP's lead bombmaker, Ibrahim Hassan Tali al-Asiri, had been seen again. American officials originally said al-Asiri was killed in the Sept. 30, 2011, airstrike that also resulted in the death of AQAP's English-speaking ideologue, Anwar al-Awlaki. A few days after the strike, reports surfaced that al-Asiri had in fact survived the attack, but he has maintained a low profile since then.

While al-Asiri is certainly not AQAP's only bombmaker, he is an innovative, out-of-the-box thinker. Not only was he behind the device that his brother, Abdullah al-Asiri, used in his suicide bombing attempt against Saudi Deputy Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef on Aug. 27, 2009, and the underwear bomb used in December 2009, he was also responsible for the attempted attack against two U.S. cargo aircraft in October 2010 using IEDs hidden in computer printer ink cartridges. Indeed, he is the technical author of every AQAP transnational attack attempted so far. Even though all of those attacks have failed, he is still considered a threat. This fact was highlighted by the May 7 reports of a thwarted bomb plot using an improved version of al-Asiri's underwear device.

A second, AQAP-related piece of the puzzle surfaced on May 2, when the group published two editions of its English-language Inspire magazine, ending the publishing hiatus that began after the magazine's editor, Samir Khan, died in the same Sept. 30, 2011, airstrike that killed Anwar al-Awlaki. AQAP watchers wondered why the group released two editions of the magazine so closely together, and the revelation of a plan for another transnational bomb plot directed against American aircraft appears to provide the answer to that question.

Last week, we wrote about the third piece of the puzzle: the proliferation of Libyan shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, also known as MANPADS, among jihadist militants in Africa and perhaps elsewhere. Many of these missiles are older SA-7s that have limited utility against modern military aircraft equipped with countermeasures, but they could be employed effectively against a commercial airliner during the vulnerable takeoff or landing phases of a flight. While this threat has existed for some time, we are hearing recent reports of missile dissemination and planning discussions.

Another important piece of the puzzle is the ongoing trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed before a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Mohammed, better known by his initials KSM, is the captured al Qaeda operational planner who was named the principal architect of the 9/11 operation in the 9/11 Commission Report. He was also involved in a number of other plots prior to 9/11, including the 1994 Operation Bojinka plot in the Philippines, the 2001 shoe-bomb plot and the 2002 Library Tower plot.

KSM's operational style had several distinctive hallmarks, including the frequent choice of aircraft as targets; the notion of multiple, simultaneous strikes; and the use of modular IEDs smuggled aboard the aircraft. Although KSM was arrested in March 2003, he continued to influence other jihadist planners. This influence was clearly seen in the August 2006 Heathrow liquid-bomb plot, which targeted nine American airliners. AQAP's cargo bombing attempt, which targeted multiple aircraft, reflected KSM's preference for multi-pronged plots, and the reports of the thwarted May 7 bombing attempt indicate that aircraft are still considered desirable targets for jihadist groups.

KSM's trial began May 5, three days after the anniversary of bin Laden's death. With the trial in the world's media spotlight, it is quite possible that jihadists are planning an operation in homage to KSM and bin Laden, and that KSM's operational hallmarks could be seen again.

Paradigm Shifts

Of course, this is nothing new. Commercial aviation has been threatened by terrorism for decades now, and as discussed above, airliners have been under constant threat from jihadist groups because they are highly visible targets that are readily associated with specific nations, and a successful attack generates a large number of casualties and a high level of press coverage.

But as airline security measures have shifted in response to threats, so too have the modes of attack. When security measures were put in place to protect against Bojinka-style attacks in the 1990s -- attacks that involved modular explosive devices smuggled onto planes and left on board -- the jihadists adapted and conducted 9/11-style attacks. When security measures were put in place to counter 9/11-style attacks, jihadists quickly responded by shifting to onboard suicide attacks with concealed IEDs inside shoes. When that tactic was discovered and shoes began to be screened, they switched to camouflaging containers filled with liquid explosives. When security measures were adjusted to restrict the quantity of liquids that people could take aboard aircraft, jihadists altered the paradigm once more and attempted the underwear bombing using a device with no metal components. When security measures were taken to increase passenger screening in response to the underwear bombing, AQAP decided to attack cargo aircraft with IEDs hidden in printer cartridges.

Read more: Searching for Connections Amid Terrorist Threats | Stratfor