Cover & Evacuate:

Stand & Deliver:

Upcoming Security & LE Events:

This listing will be updated frequently, so check back often for the latest updates!


Police TREXPO West
March 29 - 31, 2010 (Range Day April 1)
Long Beach Convention Center, Long Beach CA
http://www.trexpo.com/

International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association (ILEETA)
2010 International Training Conference and Expo
April 19 - 24, 2010
Westin Chicago North Shore, Wheeling, Illinois (in the Greater Chicago Area)
http://www.ileeta.org/Conference_2010.htm

2010 New York Tactical Training Conference & Expo
April 27 - 29, 2010
Turning Stone Resort  - Verona, NY
http://www.nytacticalexpo.com/index.html

International Association of Counterterrorism & Security Professionals (IACSP)
18th Annual Terrorism Trends & Forecasts Symposium
May 6, 2010
Fairleigh Dickinson University in Hackensack, New Jersey
http://iacsp.com/conference_agenda.php

International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors, Inc (IALEFI)
30th Annual Training Conference
May 23 - 28, 2010
San Antonio, Texas
http://www.ialefi.com/

International Association of Counterterrorism & Security Professionals (IACSP)
Midwest Terrorism Trends & Forecasts Conference
May 26, 2010
Where: Columbus Ohio Division of Police Training Bureau - Columbus, Ohio
http://iacsp.com/conference_agenda_ohio.php

Police Security Expo 2010
June 22 – 23, 2010
Atlantic City, NJ Convention Center
http://www.police-security.com/

Police TREXPO East
August 17 – 19, 2010 (Range Day August 20)
Dulles Expo Center, Chantilly VA
http://www.trexpo.com/

4th Annual New York Police - Fire – EMS Expo
September 15 – 16, 2010
Javits Center, New York, NY
http://www.palawexpo.com/index.html

NTOA Tactical Operations Conference & Vendor Show
September 19 - 24, 2010
David L. Lawrence Convention Center
http://www.ntoa.org/conference/

NOTE:

This listing of events is provided as a courtesy to our subscribers. We have been told that many in the law enforcement, protective services & military community would like to attend these types of events but often times don't find out about them until to late. This listing is one way we are trying to help! The listing of any event does not constitute an endorsement by the Sykes Group (http://www.sykesgroups.com).

Mujahid Abdur-Rahman aka ROCK with Michael D. Janich at the 2009 NY Law Enforcement Expo 2009

Mujahid Abdur-Rahman aka ROCK (rear) graduating from Executive Protection training at the Sykes Group October 2009

Airline Security: Gentle Solutions to a Vexing Problem

By Fred Burton and Ben West

U.S. President Barack Obama outlined a set of new policies Jan. 7 in response to the Dec. 25, 2009 Northwest Airlines bombing attempt, which came the closest to a successful attack on a U.S. flight since Richard Reid’s failed shoe-bombing in December 2001. As in the aftermath of that attempt, a flurry of accusations, excuses and policy prescriptions have emanated from Washington since Christmas Day concerning U.S. airline security. Whatever changes actually result from the most recent bombing attempt, they will likely be more successful at pacifying the public and politicians than preventing future attacks.

At the heart of President Obama’s policy outline were the following key tactics: pursue enhanced screening technology in the transportation sector, review the visa issuance and revocation process, enhance coordination among agencies for counterterrorism (CT) investigations and establish a process to prioritize such investigations. While such measures are certainly important, they will not go far enough, by themselves, to meaningfully address the aviation security challenges the United States still faces almost nine years after 9/11.

Holes in the System

For one thing, technology must not be seen as a panacea. It can be a very useful tool for finding explosive devices and weapons concealed on a person or in luggage, but it is predictable and reactive. In terms of aviation security, the federal government has consistently been fighting the last war and continues to do so. Certain practical and effective steps have been taken. Hardening the cockpit door, deploying air marshals and increasing crew and passenger awareness countered the airline hijacking threat after 9/11; requiring passengers to remove their shoes and scanning them prior to boarding followed Reid’s 2001 shoe-bombing attempt; and restrictions on liquids and gels followed the 2006 trans-Atlantic plot. Not enacting these measures would have meant not learning from past mistakes, and they do ensure that unsophisticated “copycat” attackers are not successful. But such measures — even those that are less technological — fail to take into account innovative militants, who are eager and able to exploit inevitable weaknesses in the process.

Even advanced body-imaging systems like the newer backscatter and millimeter-wave systems now being used to screen travelers cannot pick up explosives hidden inside a person’s body using condoms or tampons — a tactic that was initially thought to have been used in the Aug. 28 assassination attempt against Saudi Deputy Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef. (It is now believed that the attacker in that case used an underwear bomb like the one used in the Christmas Day attempt.) Moreover, X-ray systems cannot detect explosives cleverly disguised in carry-on baggage or smuggled past security checkpoints — something that drug smugglers routinely do.

Preventing attacks against U.S. airliners would require unrealistically invasive and inconvenient measures that the airline industry and American society are simply not prepared to implement. El Al, Israel’s national airline, is one international carrier that conducts thorough searches of every passenger and every handbag, runs checked luggage through a decompression chamber and has two air marshals on each flight. The airline also refuses to let some people (including many Muslims) on board. While these practices have been successful in preventing terrorist attacks against the airline, they are not in line with American and European culture and President Obama’s insistence that measures remain consistent with privacy rights and civil liberties. It is also economically and politically unfeasible for major U.S. airlines operating hundreds of flights per day from hundreds of different cities to impose measures such as those followed by El Al, an airline with fewer planes and a smaller area of operation.

And as long as U.S. airport security relies on screening techniques that are only moderately invasive, there will be holes that innovative attackers will be able to exploit. While screening technology is advancing, there is nothing in the foreseeable future that would be able to do more screening with less invasiveness. The U.S. prison system grapples with the same problem, and even there, where inmates are searched far more invasively than air travelers, contraband is still able to flow into facilities.

Focusing on the visa issuance and revocation process also leaves holes in the system. The Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, had been given a multiple-entry U.S. visa, which allowed him to travel to the United States. When Abdulmutallab’s father expressed concerns to officials at the U.S. Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, on Nov. 19, 2009, that his son might have been involved with Yemen-based Islamist militants, Abdulmutallab’s name and passport number were sent from the U.S. Embassy in Abuja to Washington and placed in the “Visa Viper” system, which specifically pertains to visas and terrorist suspects. His name and passport number were also logged into the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, but not the “no-fly” list.

This standard operating procedure (which does not automatically result in a visa revocation) passed the responsibility from the CIA agents who spoke to Abdulmuttalab’s father on to the U.S. State Department, where agents unfamiliar with the specifics of the case did not, apparently, decide to act on it. In hindsight, the decision not to take the father’s warning more seriously appears to be a glaring mistake, but in context it seems less obvious. The father’s tip was vague, with little indication of what his son was up to or, more important to U.S. CT agents, that he was planning even to travel to the United States, much less attack a U.S. airliner.

Intelligence Limitations

The possibility of yet another jihadist suspect emerging in the Middle East does not pose an existential threat to the United States, so this raises the third challenge: prioritizing CT investigations. Vague warnings such as the tip from Abdulmuttalab’s father spring up constantly throughout the world and CT investigators have to prioritize them. Only the most serious cases get assigned to an investigator to follow up on while the rest are filed away for future reference. If the same name pops up again with more information on the threat, then more action is taken. U.S. CT agents are most concerned about specific threats to the United States, and with no actionable intelligence that Abdulmutallab was plotting an attack against the United States, his case was given a lower priority.

Nevertheless, not acting immediately on the father’s vague threat proved to be a near-fatal move. This highlights the danger of the unsophisticated, ill-trained militant, referred to in U.S. CT circles as a “Kramer jihadist” (after the bumbling character in the sitcom “Seinfeld”). By himself, a Kramer jihadist poses a minimal threat, but when combined with a trained operative or group, he can become a formidable weapon. Abdulmutallab had been radicalized, but there is nothing to suggest that he had extensive jihadist training or any tactical expertise. He was simply a willing agent with a visa to the United States. When put in the hands of a competent, well-trained operator (such as those involved with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula), a Kramer jihadist can be outfitted with a device and given a support network that could supply him with transportation and direction to carry out an effective attack. There are simply too many radical Islamists in the world to investigate each one, but immediately revoking visas to keep suspects off U.S. airliners until they can be investigated further is a fairly simple process and would be an effective deterrent.

Finally, the lack of coordination among agencies in CT investigations is an old problem that dates back well before 9/11. This challenge lies in the fact that the U.S. intelligence community is broken up into specific agencies — each with its own specific jurisdiction and incentive to leverage its power in Washington by controlling the flow of information. This system ensures that no single agency becomes too powerful and self-interested, but it also fractures the intelligence community and bureaucratizes intelligence sharing.

National Counterterrorism Center

In order to investigate a case like Abdulmutallab’s, agents from the CIA must work with agents from the FBI, and the State Department is tasked with coordinating the requests for information from various foreign governments (whose information is not always reliable). For foreign threats specifically aimed at airlines, agents from the Transportation Security Administration, Federal Aviation Administration, Office of Director of National Intelligence, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement must be notified. Rallying and coordinating all the appropriate actors and agencies to respond to a threat requires careful bureaucratic maneuvering and presents numerous opportunities to be bogged down at every step. Certainly, the more overt the threat, the easier it is to move the bureaucracy, but a case as opaque as Abdulmutallab’s would not likely inspire a quick and decisive follow-up.

The U.S. National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) was created to aggregate threats from various local, state and federal agencies all over the world in order to streamline the threat-identification and investigation process. However, the additional bureaucracy that was generated with the formation of the NCTC has essentially canceled out any benefit that the center might have contributed.

When it comes down to it, modern airliners — full of people and fuel — are extremely vulnerable targets that can produce highly dramatic carnage, characteristics that attract militants and militant groups seeking global notoriety. And Abdulmutallab’s efforts on Christmas Day certainly will not be the last militant attempt to bring an airliner down. As security measures are changed in response to this most recent attempt, terrorist planners will be watching closely and are sure to adapt their tactics accordingly.

"This report is republished with permission of STRATFOR"

The Khost Attack and the Intelligence War Challenge
January 11, 2010

By George Friedman and Scott Stewart

As Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi exited the vehicle that brought him onto Forward Operating Base (FOB) Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan, on Dec. 30, 2009, security guards noticed he was behaving strangely. They moved toward al-Balawi and screamed demands that he take his hand out of his pocket, but instead of complying with the officers’ commands, al-Balawi detonated the suicide device he was wearing. The explosion killed al-Balawi, three security contractors, four CIA officers and the Jordanian General Intelligence Department (GID) officer who was al-Balawi’s handler. The vehicle shielded several other CIA officers at the scene from the blast. The CIA officers killed included the chief of the base at Khost and an analyst from headquarters who reportedly was the agency’s foremost expert on al Qaeda. The agency’s second-ranking officer in Afghanistan was allegedly among the officers who survived.

Al-Balawi was a Jordanian doctor from Zarqa (the hometown of deceased al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi). Under the alias Abu Dujanah al-Khurasani, he served as an administrator for Al-Hesbah, a popular Internet discussion forum for jihadists. Jordanian officers arrested him in 2007 because of his involvement with radical online forums, which is illegal in Jordan. The GID subsequently approached al-Balawi while he was in a Jordanian prison and recruited him to work as an intelligence asset.

Al-Balawi was sent to Pakistan less than a year ago as part of a joint GID/CIA mission. Under the cover of going to school to receive advanced medical training, al-Balawi established himself in Pakistan and began to reach out to jihadists in the region. Under his al-Khurasani pseudonym, al-Balawai announced in September 2009 in an interview on a jihadist Internet forum that he had officially joined the Afghan Taliban.

A Lucky Break for the TTP

It is unclear if al-Balawi was ever truly repentant. Perhaps he cooperated with the GID at first, but had a change of heart sometime after arriving in Pakistan. Either way, at some point al-Balawi approached the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the main Pakistani Taliban group, and offered to work with it against the CIA and GID. Al-Balawi confirmed this in a video statement recorded with TTP leader Hakeemullah Mehsud and released Jan. 9. This is significant because it means that al-Balawi’s appearance was a lucky break for the TTP, and not part of some larger, intentional intelligence operation orchestrated by the TTP or another jihadist entity like al Qaeda.

The TTP’s luck held when a group of 13 people gathered to meet al-Balawi upon his arrival at FOB Chapman. This allowed him to detonate his suicide device amid the crowd and create maximum carnage before he was able to be searched for weapons.

In the world of espionage, source meetings are almost always a dangerous activity for both the intelligence officer and the source. There are fears the source could be surveilled and followed to the meeting site, or that the meeting could be raided by host country authorities and the parties arrested. In the case of a terrorist source, the meeting site could be attacked and those involved in the meeting killed. Because of this, the CIA and other intelligence agencies exercise great care while conducting source meetings. Normally they will not bring the source into a CIA station or base. Instead, they will conduct the meeting at a secure, low-profile offsite location.

Operating in the wilds of Afghanistan is far different from operating out of an embassy in Vienna or Moscow, however. Khost province is Taliban territory, and it offers no refuge from the watching eyes and gunmen of the Taliban and their jihadist allies. Indeed, the province has few places safe enough even for a CIA base. And this is why the CIA base in Khost is located on a military base, FOB Chapman, named for the first American killed in Afghanistan following the U.S. invasion. Normally, an outer ring of Afghan security around the base searches persons entering FOB Chapman, who the U.S. military then searches again at the outer perimeter of the U.S. portion of the base. Al-Balawi, a high-value CIA asset, was allowed to skip these external layers of security to avoid exposing his identity to Afghan troops and U.S. military personnel. Instead, the team of Xe (the company formerly known as Blackwater) security contractors were to search al-Balawi as he arrived at the CIA’s facility.

A Failure to Follow Security Procedures

Had proper security procedures been followed, the attack should only have killed the security contractors, the vehicle driver and perhaps the Jordanian GID officer. But proper security measures were not followed, and several CIA officers rushed out to greet the unscreened Jordanian source. Reports indicate that the source had alerted his Jordanian handler that he had intelligence pertaining to the location of al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri. (There are also reports that al-Balawi had given his handlers highly accurate battle damage assessments on drone strikes in Pakistan, indicating that he had access to high-level jihadist sources.) The prospect of finally receiving such crucial and long-sought information likely explains the presence of the high-profile visitors from CIA headquarters in Langley and the station in Kabul — and their exuberance over receiving such coveted intelligence probably explains their eager rush to meet the source before he had been properly screened.

The attack, the most deadly against CIA personnel since the 1983 Beirut bombing, was clearly avoidable, or at least mitigable. But human intelligence is a risky business, and collecting human intelligence against jihadist groups can be flat-out deadly. The CIA officers in Khost the day of the bombing had grown complacent, and violated a number of security procedures. The attack thus serves as a stark reminder to the rest of the clandestine service of the dangers they face and of the need to adhere to time-tested security procedures.

A better process might have prevented some of the deaths, but it would not have solved the fundamental problem: The CIA had an asset who turned out to be a double agent. When he turned is less important than that he was turned into — assuming he had not always been — a double agent. His mission was to gain the confidence of the CIA as to his bona fides, and then create an event in which large numbers of CIA agents were present, especially the top al Qaeda analyst at the CIA. He knew that high-value targets would be present because he had set the stage for the meeting by dangling vital information before the agency. He went to the meeting to carry out his true mission, which was to deliver a blow against the CIA. He succeeded.

The Obama Strategy’s Weakness

In discussing the core weakness in the Afghan strategy U.S. President Barack Obama has chosen, we identified the basic problem as the intelligence war. We argued that establishing an effective Afghan army would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, because the Americans and their NATO allies lacked knowledge and sophistication in distinguishing friend from foe among those being recruited into the army. This problem is compounded by the fact that there are very few written documents in a country like Afghanistan that could corroborate identities. The Taliban would seed the Afghan army with its own operatives and supporters, potentially exposing the army’s operations to al Qaeda.

This case takes the problem a step further. The United States relied on Jordanian intelligence to turn a jihadist operative into a double agent. They were dependent on the Jordanian handler’s skills at debriefing, vetting and testing the now-double agent. It is now reasonable to assume the agent allowed himself to be doubled in an attempt to gain the trust of the handler. The Jordanians offered the source to the Americans, who obviously grabbed him, and the source passed all the tests to which he was undoubtedly subjected. Yet in the end, his contacts with the Taliban were not designed to provide intelligence to the Americans. The intelligence provided to the Americans was designed to win their trust and set up the suicide bombing. It is therefore difficult to avoid the conclusion that al-Balawi was playing the GID all along and that his willingness to reject his jihadist beliefs was simply an opportunistic strategy for surviving and striking.

Even though encountering al-Balawi was a stroke of luck for the TTP, the group’s exploitation of this lucky break was a very sophisticated operation. The TTP had to provide valuable intelligence to allow al-Balawi to build his credibility. It had to create the clustering of CIA agents by promising extraordinarily valuable intelligence. It then had to provide al-Balawi with an effective suicide device needed for the strike. And it had to do this without being detected by the CIA. Al-Balawi had a credible cover for meeting TTP agents; that was his job. But what al-Balawi told his handlers about his meetings with the TTP, and where he went between meetings, clearly did not indicate to the handlers that he was providing fabricated information or posed a threat.

In handling a double agent, it is necessary to track every step he takes. He cannot be trusted because of his history; the suspicion that he is still loyal to his original cause must always be assumed. Therefore, the most valuable moments in evaluating a double agent are provided by intense scrutiny of his patterns and conduct away from his handlers and new friends. Obviously, if this scrutiny was applied, al-Balawi and his TTP handlers were still able to confuse their observers. If it was not applied, then the CIA was setting itself up for disappointment. Again, such scrutiny is far more difficult to conduct in the Pakistani badlands, where resources to surveil a source are very scarce. In such a case, the intuition and judgment of the agent’s handler are critical, and al-Balawi was obviously able to fool his Jordanian handler.

Given his enthusiastic welcome at FOB Chapman, it would seem al-Balawi was regarded not only as extremely valuable but also as extremely reliable. Whatever process might have been used at the meeting, the central problem was that he was regarded as a highly trusted source when he shouldn’t have been. Whether this happened because the CIA relied entirely on the Jordanian GID for evaluation or because American interrogators and counterintelligence specialists did not have the skills needed to pick up the cues can’t be known. What is known is that the TTP ran circles around the CIA in converting al-Balawi to its uses.

The United States cannot hope to reach any satisfactory solution in Afghanistan unless it can win the intelligence war. But the damage done to the CIA in this attack cannot be overestimated. At least one of the agency’s top analysts on al Qaeda was killed. In an intelligence war, this is the equivalent of sinking an aircraft carrier in a naval war. The United States can’t afford this kind of loss. There will now be endless reviews, shifts in personnel and re-evaluations. In the meantime, the Taliban in both Pakistan and Afghanistan will be attempting to exploit the opportunity presented by this disruption.

Casualties happen in war, and casualties are not an argument against war. However, when the center of gravity in a war is intelligence, and an episode like this occurs, the ability to prevail becomes a serious question. We have argued that in any insurgency, the insurgents have a built-in advantage. It is their country and their culture, and they are indistinguishable from everyone else. Keeping them from infiltrating is difficult.

This was a different matter. Al-Balawi was Jordanian; his penetration of the CIA was less like the product of an insurgency than an operation carried out by a national intelligence service. And this is the most troubling aspect of this incident for the United States. The operation was by all accounts a masterful piece of tradecraft beyond the known abilities of a group like the TTP. Even though al-Balawi’s appearance was a lucky break for the TTP, not the result of an intentional, long-term operation, the execution of the operation that arose as a result of that lucky break was skillfully done — and it was good enough to deliver a body blow to the CIA. The Pakistani Taliban would thus appear far more skilled than we would have thought, which is the most important takeaway from this incident, and something to ponder.

"This report is republished with permission of STRATFOR"

Sounds like about 50 rounds fired and multiple weapons involved:

Tactical Implications of the Headley Case

By Scott Stewart

A week after he was arrested in Chicago on Oct. 3, David Coleman Headley was charged in a federal criminal complaint with conspiring to commit terrorist attacks outside the United States and providing material support to terrorist organizations. The charges alleged that Headley was involved in a plot to attack a newspaper in Denmark that had published a collection of cartoons satirizing the Prophet Mohammed in September 2005.

Since Headley’s arrest, there have been almost daily disclosures of new information regarding his activities and those of his co-conspirators. These new details have emerged during court proceedings and from leaks by U.S., Indian and Pakistani government officials. On Dec. 7, new federal charges were filed against Headley alleging that he had conducted extensive surveillance against targets in Mumbai that were attacked during the November 2008 armed assault in that city, which resulted in the deaths of some 170 people. Headley reportedly became an informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) after being arrested and charged with smuggling heroin into the United States from Pakistan in 1997. Following the 9/11 attacks, he allegedly worked for the FBI as a terrorism informant. Now, following his arrest on Oct. 3, he is reportedly again cooperating with the U.S. government.

From the information that has emerged so far, it appears that Headley, who was born Daood Gilani in 1960 in Washington, D.C., to a Pakistani father and American mother, worked as a surveillance operative and operational planner for the Pakistan-based militant groups Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Harkat-ul-Jihad e-Islami (HUJI). In 2006, Headley legally changed his name from Daood Gilani to David Coleman Headley, anglicizing his first name and taking his mother’s maiden surname. He apparently did this to disguise his Pakistani heritage and Muslim faith while traveling to places such as India and Denmark.

Details of this case will continue to emerge as the court proceedings against Headley and his co-conspirators progress, but the information released to date reveals a great deal about Headley and about LeT and HUJI.

What We’ve Learned About Headley

First, it is evident that Headley was not merely a low-level cannon fodder-type operative. Most of the men who attend jihadist training camps are taught basic infantry and guerrilla-warfare skills such as hand-to-hand combat and how to fire an AK-47 and throw a hand grenade. A handful of the best and brightest of these students are then selected to attend additional training in advanced combat skills that often include terrorist tradecraft, which is the set of skills required to conduct a terrorist attack. Terrorist tradecraft includes things like surveillance, bombmaking and covert communications and is quite distinct from basic infantry skills.

In his Dec. 7 indictment, we learned that Headley reportedly attended LeT training camps in Pakistan in February and August of 2002 and in April, August and December of 2003. This indicates that Headley progressed far beyond basic militant training, and it is likely that he was taught during his later training sessions the tradecraft required to conduct preoperational surveillance for terrorist attacks and to participate in the operational planning for such attacks.

One element of terrorist tradecraft that was evident in the indictment and the Oct. 11 criminal complaint is Headley’s careful use of language and of multiple methods of communications, including the use of cell phones and using long-distance calling cards, e-mail communication (using a variety of accounts) and face-to-face briefings. For the most sensitive communications and planning activities, Headley traveled to Pakistan to meet in person with LeT and HUJI leaders, a very secure way to communicate. He also had numerous phone and e-mail conversations in which he discussed the status of his work or planned reconnaissance trips. During such conversations, Headley would use terms to disguise the true objective of his work. For example, when referring to attack plans, Headley and his alleged co-conspirators reportedly called them “investment plans” or “business plans,” and when discussing the plot against Jyllands-Posten, the newspaper that published the Mohammed cartoons, Headley and his co-conspirators referred to it as the “Mickey Mouse Project,” the “MMP” or “the Northern Project.”

Headley also used a common militant communication method of creating messages and then saving them in the drafts folder of a Web-mail service rather than sending the message. The person creating such a message can then provide a colleague with the user name and password for the Web-mail account, which enables the second person to log on and read the communication in the draft folder without an e-mail having been sent. This procedure is referred to as an “electronic dead drop.”

In addition to facilitating communication, these dead drops can be used to save notes that a terrorist operative does not want to physically carry on his person for fear of being caught with them. In September, we noted that Najibullah Zazi used this method to send his bombmaking notes from a training camp in Pakistan to himself rather than risk physically carrying the notes into the United States, where they could have been found during a search of his belongings.

According to the Oct. 11 criminal complaint, before leaving Pakistan for the United States in December 2008, Headley used this process to save a list of taskings he had received for his surveillance work in Denmark. The list, which was entitled “Mickey Mouse,” included the following entries (presented here as contained in the complaint, verbatim and unedited):

• Route Design (train bus air)
• Cross (cover authenticator)
• Trade? Immigration?
• Ad (Lost Luggage) (Business) (Entry)?
• King’s Square (French Embassy)
• YMCA
• Car Trip + Train Option (Nufoozur Rehman) (Weekend?)
• Residence for clients
• Complete Area Coverage (P.S. e.t.c.)
• Countersurveillance (magic eye)
• NDC option; Lunch + coffee spots
• Security (armed?)
• Foreman residence
• Zoom; Entry and exit method in the house
• Feasible plan
• On return, procurement of machinery
• Uniform
• Mixed fruit Dish
• Cell phone and camera
• Border Crossing
• City Guide Map
• Alternate Investment
• Got Papers? (Clients)
• Make Visiting Cards

We’ve included all the items listed in the complaint to demonstrate the depth of the surveillance work he was tasked with by his contacts in Pakistan. These responsibilities included determining the best way to get the attack team (“clients”) into the country, finding them a place to stay, procuring weapons (“machinery”) and conducting thorough surveillance of the newspaper and its surroundings. This would have included security in the area, countersurveillance activity and closed-circuit television cameras in place. Headley may also have been tasked with locating the residence of the newspaper’s editor.

According to the Oct. 11 federal complaint, Headley traveled from Chicago to Copenhagen in January 2009 to conduct surveillance of the Jyllands-Posten offices in Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark, and to photograph and videotape the surrounding areas. He then traveled to Pakistan, where he met with his co-conspirators to brief them on his surveillance operations and to construct a plan for the attack. Following his return to Chicago, Headley traveled back to Copenhagen in August 2009 to conduct additional surveillance (presumably to address issues that arose during the operational planning session in Pakistan). During this second trip, Headley made some 13 additional videos and took many photos of the potential targets and the areas around them.

In the Dec. 7 indictment, the U.S. government alleges that in order to conduct surveillance for the Mumbai attacks, Headley made five extended trips to Mumbai: one in September 2006, two in February and September of 2007 and two in April and July of 2008. During each of these trips Headley reportedly took pictures and made videos of various targets, including those attacked in November 2008. He also reportedly traveled to Pakistan after each of these trips to brief his co-conspirators there and to provide them with his maps, sketches, photos and videos. In March 2008, Headley and his co-conspirators reportedly discussed potential landing sites for a team of attackers who would arrive by sea in Mumbai, and he was instructed to take boat trips in and around the Mumbai harbor and make videotapes of the area, which he allegedly did during his visit to India in April 2008.

During much of his surveillance activity, Headley identified himself as an employee of the immigration services company First World, but there is no evidence that Headley ever worked for that company. There is also no information in the documents released so far that would explain how Headley paid for his extensive international travel, much less earned money to cover his day-to-day expenses.

Finally, there is the issue of Headley’s alleged work as a DEA and FBI informant (which could help explain at least some of the financial mysteries discussed above). Given the demonstrated — and considerable — nexus between heroin trafficking and terrorism funding for the jihadist groups operating in Pakistan and Afghanistan, such a crossover of an informant from narcotics to terrorism is no surprise — especially following the incredible push by the U.S. government to recruit human intelligence sources with links to the jihadist world following the 9/11 attacks.

If Headley were reporting to the FBI, it could also explain the very specific warnings that the U.S. government gave to the government of India about plans to attack hotels in Mumbai in September 2008. Following the warning, the government of India initially increased security measures at these sites, but the measures were dropped before the attacks were launched in November 2008.

At present, it is very difficult to ascertain if Headley was a double agent who was really reporting to LeT and HUJI the entire time he was ostensibly working for the U.S. government or if he was merely a rogue informant who was playing both ends against the middle for his own personal benefit. Such rogue sources have been seen in jihadist cases before. If Headley was either a double agent or a rogue source, there may be some significant blowback for the U.S. government as further revelations are made about the case.

What We’ve Learned About LeT and HUJI

First of all, this case demonstrates that LeT and HUJI have each developed a sophisticated central-planning apparatus. This is something they needed to do as they drifted out from under the wings of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate, though undoubtedly they learned a lot about planning from their long association with the ISI. Second, the Headley case shows that as of October 2009 (almost a year after the Mumbai attacks), LeT and HUJI still enjoyed a great deal of operational freedom in Pakistan. They were able to travel, raise funds, communicate, train and plan operations with seemingly little interference. This is a stark contrast to al Qaeda, which is hunted, on the run and experiencing a great deal of difficulty moving operatives, communicating, raising funds and conducting operations. The links between Headley and his associates to current and former Pakistani military officers and government officials are likely what is affording LeT and HUJI their operational freedom.

As far as targeting, we have seen LeT and HUJI shift away from strictly Indian targets and toward more of a transnational al Qaeda-like target set. Not only did they attack Western interests and a Jewish target in Mumbai, but they were also planning to conduct an attack against a newspaper in Denmark that had absolutely no relation to the cause of Kashmiri independence from India. That said, despite having a highly trained surveillance operative and operational planner living inside the United States, these groups did not appear to task him to use his terrorist tradecraft to conduct target surveillance or plan and conduct attacks inside the United States.

According to court documents, HUJI leader Ilyas Kashmiri appears to have been the force driving the Denmark attack plans, and Headley seems to have been frustrated when his LeT contacts did not want to proceed with the Denmark attack after Kashmiri was reportedly killed in an American unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) strike in Pakistan. LeT wanted Headley to help them plan another attack in India instead. The report of Kashmiri’s death was ultimately proved false, but the UAV attack apparently caused Kashmiri to go to ground and for Headley and his LeT contacts to lose communication with Kashmiri for a period of time. It is known that Kashmiri is closely affiliated with al Qaeda, and the plans for the Denmark attack are an indication that HUJI has become more closely aligned with the transnational jihadist targeting philosophy as a result of Kashmiri’s contacts with bin Laden and company. It appears that LeT, on the other hand, has retained more of a focus on India. So, while the two organizations continue to cooperate, they do have some differences in targeting philosophy, and it would seem that HUJI is creeping further into the al Qaeda orbit than LeT.

The information released to date in this case also underscores the importance of interpersonal relationships in the jihadist milieu and how these relationships, which are based on family, friendship and trust, often lead to an overlap in which people interact with different groups, and groups such as LeT and HUJI share resources and work together. The jihadist world can be a very murky place and operatives can work with different “companies,” to use Headley’s term.

Protective Intelligence Implications

This case also has some significant protective intelligence implications, and it underscores much of what we have been saying about surveillance and countersurveillance for several years now.

While Headley is a U.S. citizen and changed his name in order to camouflage his heritage and religious affiliation, he conducted an inordinate amount of surveillance activity by himself. Conducting a surveillance operation with only one person is among the most difficult — and risky — activities that any surveillance operative can be tasked to perform. Any time a person conducts surveillance he or she is vulnerable to detection. That vulnerability is mitigated somewhat if the surveillance is conducted by a team of individuals and the team members can take turns exposing themselves to potential countersurveillance. Doing a solo surveillance operation means that the surveillance operative is forced to show his face time and again to anyone watching.

Furthermore, activities such as taking photographs and making video recordings are far riskier than simply observing a target. Having one single surveillance operative visit two offices of the same newspaper and then take dozens of photos and make 13 video recordings of the offices — in a one-week span, no less — is terrible surveillance tradecraft. Had someone been conducting countersurveillance on one of the targets Headley was studying — or, better yet, countersurveillance of more than one of these potential targets — the countersurveillance assets almost certainly would have noticed his abnormal behavior. American tourists may frequently take photos and shoot videos while visiting foreign capitals, but they do not take the time to capture extensive still and video images of newspaper offices.

Even people who have conducted thousands upon thousands of hours of surveillance would have a hard time creating cover for action and status that would justify that much surveillance activity — especially when the surveillant is a foreigner and working alone. The only rational explanation for why Headley was not noticed while conducting his surveillance is that nobody was looking.

The use of an American citizen to conduct surveillance once again illustrates the importance of focusing on the “how” of terrorist attacks and not just the “who.” And when considering the actor, the focus must be placed on his or her behavior, not just nationality or religious creed.

"This report is republished with permission of STRATFOR"

Ladies if your are considering entering this field then please check our schedule for upcoming classes!

Wild shootout in Toledo, Ohio's Route 66 Bar caught on video

AQAP: Paradigm Shifts and Lessons Learned

By Scott Stewart

On the evening of Aug. 28, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the Saudi Deputy Interior Minister — and the man in charge of the kingdom’s counterterrorism efforts — was receiving members of the public in connection with the celebration of Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting. As part of the Ramadan celebration, it is customary for members of the Saudi royal family to hold public gatherings where citizens can seek to settle disputes or offer Ramadan greetings.

One of the highlights of the Friday gathering was supposed to be the prince’s meeting with Abdullah Hassan Taleh al-Asiri, a Saudi man who was a wanted militant from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Al-Asiri had allegedly renounced terrorism and had requested to meet the prince in order to repent and then be accepted into the kingdom’s amnesty program. Such surrenders are not unprecedented — and they serve as great press events for the kingdom’s ideological battle against jihadists. Prince Mohammed, who is responsible for the Saudi rehabilitation program for militants, is a key figure in that ideological battle.

In February, a man who appeared with al-Asiri on Saudi Arabia’s list of most-wanted militants — former Guantanamo Bay inmate Mohammed al-Awfi — surrendered in Yemen and was transported to Saudi Arabia where he renounced terrorism and entered into the kingdom’s amnesty program. Al-Awfi, who had appeared in a January 2009 video issued by the newly created AQAP after the merger of the Saudi and Yemeni nodes of the global jihadist network, was a senior AQAP leader, and his renouncement was a major blow against AQAP.

But the al-Asiri case ended very differently from the al-Awfi case. Unlike al-Awfi, al-Asiri was not a genuine repentant — he was a human Trojan horse. After al-Asiri entered a small room to speak with Prince Mohammed, he activated a small improvised explosive device (IED) he had been carrying inside his anal cavity. The resulting explosion ripped al-Asiri to shreds but only lightly injured the shocked prince — the target of al-Asiri’s unsuccessful assassination attempt.

While the assassination proved unsuccessful, AQAP had been able to shift the operational paradigm in a manner that allowed them to achieve tactical surprise. The surprise was complete and the Saudis did not see the attack coming — the operation could have succeeded had it been better executed.

The kind of paradigm shift evident in this attack has far-reaching implications from a protective-intelligence standpoint, and security services will have to adapt in order to counter the new tactics employed. The attack also allows some important conclusions to be drawn about AQAP’s ability to operate inside Saudi Arabia.

Paradigm Shifts

Militants conducting terrorist attacks and the security services attempting to guard against such attacks have long engaged in a tactical game of cat and mouse. As militants adopt new tactics, security measures are then implemented to counter those tactics. The security changes then cause the militants to change in response and the cycle begins again. These changes can include using different weapons, employing weapons in a new way or changing the type of targets selected.

Sometimes, militants will implement a new tactic or series of tactics that is so revolutionary that it completely changes the framework of assumptions — or the paradigm — under which the security forces operate. Historically, al Qaeda and its jihadist progeny have proved to be very good at understanding the security paradigm and then developing tactics intended to exploit vulnerabilities in that paradigm in order to launch surprise attacks. For example:

• Prior to the 9/11 attacks, it was inconceivable that a large passenger aircraft would be used as a manually operated cruise missile. Hence, security screeners allowed box cutters to be carried onto aircraft, which were then used by the hijackers to take over the planes.
• The use of faux journalists to assassinate Ahmed Shah Masood with suicide IEDs hidden in their camera gear was also quite inventive.
• Had Richard Reid been able to light the fuse on his shoe bomb, we might still be wondering what happened to American Airlines Flight 63.
• The boat bomb employed against the USS Cole in October 2000 was another example of a paradigm shift that resulted in tactical surprise.

Once the element of tactical surprise is lost, however, the new tactics can be countered.

• When the crew and passengers on United Airlines Flight 93 learned what had happened to the other flights hijacked and flown to New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001, they stormed the cockpit and stopped the hijackers from using their aircraft in an attack. Aircraft cockpit doors have also been hardened and other procedural measures have been put in place to make 9/11-style suicide hijackings harder to pull off.
• Following the Masood assassination, journalists have been given very close scrutiny before being allowed into the proximity of a VIP.
• The traveling public has felt the impact of the Reid shoe-bombing attempt by being forced to remove their shoes every time they pass through airport security. And the thwarted 2006 Heathrow plot has resulted in limits on the size of liquid containers travelers can take aboard aircraft.
• The U.S. Navy is now very careful to guard against small craft pulling up alongside its warships.

Let’s now take a look at the paradigm shift marked by the Prince Mohammed assassination attempt.

AQAP’s Tactical Innovations

First, using a repentant militant was a brilliant move, especially when combined with the timing of Ramadan. For Muslims, Ramadan is a time for introspection, sacrifice, reconciliation and repentance — it is a time to exercise self-restraint and practice good deeds. Additionally, as previously mentioned, Ramadan is a time when the Saudi royal family customarily makes itself more accessible to the people than at other times of the year. By using a repentant militant who appears on Saudi Arabia’s list of most-wanted militants, AQAP was playing to the ego of the Saudis, who very much want to crush AQAP, and who also want to use AQAP members who have renounced terrorism and the group as part of their ideological campaign against jihadists. The surrender of an AQAP member offered the Saudi government a prize and a useful tool — it was an attractive offer and, as anticipated, Prince Mohammed took the bait. (Another side benefit of this tactic from the perspective of AQAP is that it will make the Saudis far more careful when they are dealing with surrendered militants in the future.)

The second tactical innovation in this case was the direct targeting of a senior member of the Saudi royal family and the member of the family specifically charged with leading the campaign against AQAP. In the past, jihadist militants in Saudi Arabia have targeted foreign interests and energy infrastructure in the kingdom. While jihadists have long derided and threatened the Saudi royal family in public statements, including AQAP statements released this year, they had not, prior to the Prince Mohammed assassination attempt, ever tried to follow through on any of their threats. Nor has the group staged any successful attack inside the kingdom since the February 2007 attack that killed four French citizens, and it has not attempted a major attack in Saudi Arabia since the failed February 2006 attack against a major oil-processing facility in the city of Abqaiq. Certainly the group had never before attempted a specifically targeted assassination against any member of the very large Saudi royal family — much less a senior member. Therefore the attack against Prince Mohammed came as a complete surprise. There are many less senior members of the royal family who would have been far more vulnerable to attack, but they would not have carried the rank or symbolism that Mohammed does.

But aside from his rank, Mohammed was the logical target to select for this operation because of his office and how he conducts his duties. Mohammed has long served as the primary contact between jihadists and the Saudi government, and he is the person Saudi militants go to in order to surrender. He has literally met with hundreds of repentant jihadists in person and had experienced no known security issues prior to the Aug. 28 incident. This explains why Mohammed personally spoke on the phone with al-Asiri prior to the surrender and why he did not express much concern over meeting with someone who appeared on his government’s list of most-wanted militants. He met with such men regularly.

Since it is well known that Mohammed has made it his personal mission to handle surrendering militants, AQAP didn’t have to do much intelligence work to realize that Mohammed was vulnerable to an attack or to arrange for a booby-trapped al-Asiri to meet with Mohammed. They merely had to adapt their tactics in order to exploit vulnerabilities in the security paradigm.

The third tactical shift is perhaps the most interesting, and that is the use of an IED hidden in the anal cavity of the bomber. Suicide bombers have long been creative when it comes to hiding their devices. In addition to the above-mentioned IED in the camera gear used in the Masood assassination, female suicide bombers with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have hidden IEDs inside brassieres, and female suicide bombers with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party have worn IEDs designed to make them look pregnant. However, this is the first instance we are aware of where a suicide bomber has hidden an IED inside a body cavity.

It is fairly common practice around the world for people to smuggle contraband such as drugs inside their body cavities. This is done not only to get items across international borders but also to get contraband into prisons. It is not unusual for people to smuggle narcotics and even cell phones into prisons inside their body cavities (the prison slang for this practice is “keistering”). It is also not at all uncommon for inmates to keister weapons such as knives or improvised stabbing devices known as “shanks.” Such keistered items can be very difficult to detect using standard search methods, especially if they do not contain much metal.

In the case of al-Asiri, he turned himself in to authorities on the afternoon of Aug. 27 and did not meet with Mohammed until the evening of Aug. 28. By the time al-Asiri detonated his explosive device, he had been in custody for some 30 hours and had been subjected to several security searches, though it is unlikely that any of them included a body cavity search. While it is possible that there was some type of internal collusion, it is more likely that the device had been hidden inside of al-Asiri the entire time.

AQAP’s claim of responsibility for the attack included the following statement:
“…Abdullah Hassan Taleh al-Asiri, who was on the list of 85 wanted persons, was able, with the help of God, to enter Nayef’s palace as he was among his guards and detonate an explosive device. No one will be able to know the type of this device or the way it was detonated. Al-Asiri managed to pass all the security checkpoints in Najran and Jeddah airports and was transported on board Mohammed bin Nayef’s private plane.”

AQAP also threatened additional surprise attacks in the “near future,” but now that the type of device al-Asiri used is known, security measures can — and almost certainly will — be implemented to prevent similar attacks in the future.

While keistering an IED is a novel tactic, it does present operational planners with some limitations. For one thing, the amount of explosive material that can be hidden inside a person is far less than the amount that can be placed inside a backpack or is typically used in a suicide belt or vest. For another, the body of the bomber will tend to absorb much of the blast wave and most of any fragmentation from the device. This means that the bomber would have to get in very close proximity to an intended target in order to kill him or her. Such a device would not be very useful for a mass-casualty attack like the July 17 Jakarta hotel bombings and instead would be more useful in assassination attempts against targeted individuals.

We have not been able to determine exactly how the device was triggered, but it likely employed a command-detonated remote device of some kind. Having wires protruding from the bomber’s body would be a sure giveaway. The use of a wireless remote means that the device would be susceptible to radio frequency countermeasures.

One other concern about such a device is that it would likely have a catastrophic result if employed on an aircraft, especially if it were removed from the bomber’s body and placed in a strategic location on board the aircraft. Richard Reid’s shoe IED only contained about four ounces of explosives, an amount that could conceivably be smuggled inside a human.

What the Attack Says About AQAP

While the Aug. 28 attack highlighted AQAP’s operational creativity, it also demonstrated that the group failed to effectively execute the attack after gaining the element of surprise. Quite simply, the bomber detonated his device too far away from the intended target. It is quite likely that the group failed to do adequate testing with the device and did not know what its effective kill radius was. AQAP will almost certainly attempt to remedy that error before it tries to employ such a device again.

In the larger picture, this attempt shows that AQAP does not have the resources inside the kingdom to plan and execute an attack on a figure like Prince Mohammed. That it would try a nuanced and highly targeted strike against Mohammed rather than a more brazen armed assault or vehicle-borne IED attack demonstrates that the group is very weak inside Saudi Arabia. It even needed to rely on operatives and planners who were in Yemen to execute the attack.

When the formation of AQAP was announced in January, STRATFOR noted that it would be important to watch for indications of whether the merger of the Saudi and Yemeni groups was a sign of desperation by a declining group or an indication that it had new blood and was on the rise. AQAP’s assassination attempt on Prince Mohammed has clearly demonstrated that the group is weak and in decline.

AQAP has not given up the struggle, but the group will be hard-pressed to weather the storm that is about to befall it as the Saudis retaliate for the plot. It will be very surprising if it is able to carry through with its threat to attack other members of the Saudi royal family in the near future. Indeed, the very fact that AQAP has threatened more attacks on the royal family likely indicates that the threats are empty; if the group truly did have other plots in the works, it would not want to risk jeopardizing those plots by prompting the Saudis to increase security in response to a threat.

Lacking the strength to conduct large, aggressive attacks, the weakened AQAP will need to continue innovating in order to pose a threat to the Saudi monarchy. But, as seen in the Aug. 28 case, tactical innovation requires more than just a novel idea — militants must also carefully develop and test new concepts before they can use them to effectively conduct a terrorist attack.

This report may be forwarded or republished on your website with attribution to www.stratfor.com

When the Mexican Drug Trade Hits the Border

 

French motorpolice practicing one and two man shooting drills on motorcycles!

This video shows just how quickly an active shooter incident or an AOP can occur. That is why we must train like our lives depend upon it, because they do!!!

 

Read the related article:
23 seconds of the Mexican drug war
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-monterrey7-2008dec07,0,5447755.story
http://tinyurl.com/6hwm64

Just a little glimpse into some of our past training programs conducted in NY, NJ & PA!

The Lessons of St. Paul

Counterterrorism on the front lines

Immediately following the September 11th attacks in 2001, a block of instruction was added to the Calibre Press: Street Survival Seminar by the venerable Lead Instructor Dave “J.D. Buck Savage” Smith. Terrorism: Battling the War in America’s Heartland was designed by Dave to bring the reality of the War on Terrorism to those who he believed would eventually be on the front lines of that war: America’s law enforcement community.

As one of the instructors, let me speak out of school here for just a moment and reveal a conflict within our Cadre. The five Seminar instructors regularly argue (in a healthy way of course) about the Terrorism block:
• What should be included?
• What should be emphasized?
• What should be eliminated?
• How often should we update the material?

The most important question that remains...(read more)

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