By David L. Johnson
Watching terrorist actions develop over the past few months have been interesting, to say the least, and I’ve been noting what I think are some trends. If nothing else, there are some good discussion topics here…
On December 3rd, 2008, the bi-partisan Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Proliferation and Terrorism released its report, titled “World at Risk.” If you’re interested you can view the report at http://www.preventwmd.gov/report/. Almost immediately thereafter, the phrase “it is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) will be used someplace in the world prior to the end of year 2013” hit the news.
In the preceding November, across the sea, in Mumbai, 10 people go on a rampage and paralyze a major metropolitan area. Using a campaign involving a mix of assault weapons and explosives, they reportedly killed at least 195, including 6 Americans, and injure over 325 more. Indian authorities took a lot of heat and criticism due to a response that was perceived as slow and inadequate. We wonder: how can they cause so much carnage and keep India’s authorities at bay for such an extended period of time?
Subsequent to both events, I was asked by an editor of a New York newspaper an interesting question: how do we keep Mumbai from happening in New York? While I’m as concerned as the next guy about Iran and North Korea getting a nuclear weapon program functional – especially since North Korea’s “satellite” rocket never made it out of the atmosphere, this single focus question intrigued me. Why? Because 2013 seems far away, it seems to me that we’ll face a “dirty bomb” before we face other WMD weapons and because Mumbai has been here for a while now.
For the last 29 years, my profession has been one where the goal is to protect people from assassination, kidnapping, injury and embarrassment. As a result, I am what I term a practical student of terrorism; I understand how important it is to know one’s enemy. I think it is time to go back for a moment and share a history lesson or two because the Mumbai scenario is going to get worse and we in the law enforcement and security communities seem to be lagging behind.
In 1972, there was a tragic incident that became a catalyst: The Munich Olympic Massacre. In its aftermath, a lot of intelligent people began to study what happened, how it happened, what did and didn’t work. How did it all come together to achieve the tragic conclusion that we know all too well? What can be done better the next time? Out of this effort, modern strategy and tactical approaches used by Police SWAT teams were born. The event stirred the primordial soup in another arena used to fight terrorism: Hostage Negotiations. In that field, people like New York’s own Frank Bolz, who founded NYPD’s Hostage Negotiations Unit did the same thing in that field. Both counter-terrorism fields became more effective as a result. That the knowledge, skills and abilities of both could be applied to “normal” criminal incidents was a great side benefit of the effort. In my field, it was the 1977 kidnapping and subsequent murder of Hans Martin Schlyer by the Red Army Faction that did the same thing for protective services. Thorough analysis brought us a sound understanding of terrorist tactics and methodologies.
Out of this thorough analysis that was done in all three of these counter-terrorism fields, new tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) were born. These new TTPs gave us the ability to lessen the effectiveness of terrorist attacks and dramatically increased our chances of surviving and/or recovering quickly from such things. Among the best aspects of this growth in the counter-terrorism arena was that our ability to train the practitioners and develop contingency and counter-action plans was enhanced greatly by this effort.
These days, I’m afraid we’ve become somewhat immune to the constant bombardment of media reports, after incident PowerPoint presentations that circulate throughout the internet and that collectively we are giving only cursory reviews to these incidents. That we are hampered by a limited attention span, driven by distractions as we multi-task our way through our days and that every entity I know of is suffering from budget constraints, isn’t helping us get better at what we do to provide for the general safety and welfare of the public. And along the way, we’re not learning enough, training enough nor or we responding well as we could be at times.
Those of us in the law enforcement, security and military communities need to remain cognizant of the value of thorough analysis efforts. In the last 4 months, literally dozens of emails, PowerPoint presentations and “analysis” reviews have hit my email in-box. Most of them give two or three “take away points” and leave me wanting to know more. Having watched actual historical incidents be repeated to the point where the story becomes inaccurate to the point where the value of it becomes negated as it is repeated by people who don’t care enough to delve fully into the issue, I think this current culture of quick brush stroke, multi-tasking “take away points” is missing the mark greatly.
We have to become students of current events and analyze them thoroughly. If we do, we will form better plans to respond, contain, mitigate the effects of, and recover from such events that may happen in our back yard as terrorism continues to evolve. If we don’t we’re destined to spend eternity in a never ending cycle of playing second fiddle to bad guys who have all the imitative.
Now I have some good news and some bad news: The good news is that the likelihood of a terrorist WMD being faced somewhere in this world is thought to be about 4 years away. The bad news is that Mumbai is already here. In 2006, near Fort Dix, New Jersey, a plan to do just the same thing was foiled when an alert video store worker was brought some films to be copied and put on DVDs by a co-conspirator in that plan. These films depicted 10 young men firing assault weapons in the Pocono Mountains of my beloved Pennsylvania as they allegedly trained to unleash a Mumbai style attack on our soldiers stationed at Fort Dix while calling for jihad and shouting “Allah Akbar.” This group was described as “a leaderless, homegrown terrorist cell of immigrants who came together because of a shared infatuation with internet images of jihad” Though during their trial they claimed they really didn’t have the courage to follow through with such plans, they sure made such plans and advocated such violence in our own backyard. Their plans were thwarted and this act of terrorism didn’t happen on our domestic soil because a single alert, clerk became suspicious and notified the FBI. As a result, five members of this group were ultimately found guilty of conspiracy in Camden, NJ on December 22nd, 2008 and subsequently incarcerated. Chalk one up for the good guys!
But this modus operandi of using a campaign of violence involving a mix of assault weapons and explosives predates this event within the United States: Columbine High School saw students Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris plan to kill hundreds of their classmates with guns, knives and a multitude of bombs. Everyone who reads this article will remember that tragic event. From the analysis perspective, the differences between Columbine and Mumbai are few. They are:
- The level of training and experience of the perpetrators
- The number of perpetrators
- The motivation of the perpetrators
- The number of affected areas involved
Does the motivation of the perpetrators really matter during the incident? Weren’t both the Columbine and Mumbai incidents what we would call “Active Shooter” scenarios today? When the situation is still active and shots are being fired, do the first responders really care what the motivation is while they duck incoming rounds? Some might say yes and cite that terrorist ideology involving a “willingness to die” in the accomplishment of their mission makes the terrorist motivated incidents different. I would say that it doesn’t: more often than not the domestic “Active Shooters” appear willing to die as well. Whether the active shooters are motivated by the psychological phenomenon of “Suicide by Cop” or a strong desire to get their 72 virgins, doesn’t matter.
I would argue instead that the level of training does. That matters greatly. Home grown fruitcakes don’t benefit from the professional level training organized terrorist organizations can provide. And that will make much harder for our first responders in an exponential manner.
To reinforce my arguments, Columbine isn’t a standalone anomaly. Virginia Tech saw a similar incident that didn’t involve the use of explosives and it proved hard to handle as well. We’ve seen these things in shopping malls, churches and recently even in an immigrant center in Binghamton, NY. Is it just me, or are these things coming more frequently?
Now, I’m not saying that the law enforcement and security communities are ignoring these “active shooter” events. This phenomenon is the focus of much discussion within our public safety and security communities today. That’s a good thing because we’ll see this again. Eventually, it will be trained terrorists who do this on our soil and not school kids or home grown, largely untrained, sympathizers who lived for years in the comfortable Philadelphia suburb of Cherry Hill before they dreamed of taking on the US Army in New Jersey. But I do think we are not going deep enough. I also don’t think that calls for more gun control provides the answer as I side with those who believe only the law abiding abide by the laws and those who would use this kind of violence will not be deterred by more laws, no matter what they may be.
The immediate thing that sticks out to me for our law enforcement and security communities is this: There isn’t a policeman in Mumbai who didn’t know where the Taj Hotel was. It has been there for years. It has always possessed a recognition value and been the gathering place of influential people and foreigners. Our neighborhoods contain similar icons and there is need to get together, identify them and plan for response, containment, mitigation and recovery. We, as a nation, need to do it now, before the next tragedy happens. If we can get ahead of this thing, we can and should do it under conditions of reason, common sense and thoroughness not under conditions of extreme stress and lack of time.
The law enforcement community and private sector security communities need to get together and work together better. This thing is bigger than both of them. There is not a single law enforcement agency anywhere in the world that can be in all places at all times. That is exactly what gave birth to the need to create private security efforts. There is not a single private sector entity, anywhere, which will go through the expense necessary to provide for the kind of equipment, training and staff necessary to effectively counter a Mumbai style attack by itself. The military, some law enforcement agencies and even some of the private military companies in existence today have the equipment, people and training to do so, but guess what: they aren’t stationed routinely at the Space Needle in Seattle in sufficient numbers to even deter such an incident much less control it. Nor are they at any school, church or even immigrant centers here in the United States. It is a game in which there can be only a response mode at the moment and responding to anything eats up valuable time.
So what can we do? Let’s get together and figure it out! Private sector security professionals responsible for locations that can be vulnerable and could reasonably be targeted for such events, whether by home grown fruitcakes and terrorist wannabes or by trained and committed real deal terrorists, need to solicit support from the highest echelons of management within their organizations and open their doors to the law enforcement community.
The law enforcement community needs to recognize that there are professional security managers in the private sector, disregard some of the traditional stereotypes associated with uniformed guard services and consider the additional resources that the private security community can provide them. Identify things within their jurisdictional areas other than “Critical Items of Infrastructure” and start identifying where this all too common modus operandi can be carried out within the communities they serve. Then they should actively solicit the support of the private security staff and management of those facilities.
We need to respond together. Let’s make even more effective contingency plans than we already have. Many agencies plan for and practice “mass casualty exercises.” This is good – Mumbai is just that, Fort Dix would have been, and high schools, churches, malls and other locations in our backyards have been as well. But in these scenarios, in addition to providing triage, HAZMAT containment and response, and figuring out how to transport all the casualties to which hospitals, we need to start looking at how we are going to respond to multiple “active shooter” locations, contain the violence, disrupt the plans of the perpetrators and place them into custody as expeditiously as possible.
We need to work together to develop plans for these sites that we CAN identify beforehand and these plans should identify how to contain the area, evacuate innocent bystanders, conduct entries into affected buildings or other areas, conduct area sweeps and deal with the assailants. Get the maps and floor plans out and plan the response for those areas considered potential targets in your jurisdictions now. All of us, members of those communities, must take a stand that says: “This won’t happen here – not on my watch, it won’t!”
There is a need for “Control of Information” and I recognize it. SWAT teams are not keen on having their contingency plans for any facility widely disseminated (read: compromised.) I’m not necessarily advocating that they come to my house, figure out their deliberate and dynamic entry plans and brief me fully on them. But they can come to my house. I can show them around, I can tell them what resources I may have and where they are at. I can tell them where the critical areas of my home are. I can tell them where I store chemicals or other items that may become additional hazards to them. I can tell them what staff I may have available and what I plan to do with them in such events. I can coordinate communication with them and facilitate things to support them. We can discuss options together. I can make my bosses understand the dynamics of such a situation and help them come up with plans to mitigate effects using the entire resource pool that may be available to them. I can make access to those resources available to the law enforcement responders and know I have permission to do so before an incident happens. The SWAT team can take that information and develop all of their initial plans from selection of rally points to entry and they can do that now.
Oh, and by the way, I believe we have another problem brewing that will do nothing but exacerbate these things in the future. One of the things that I think is negatively impacting our response to these “Active Shooter” scenarios is the level of tactical training at the front line. The first responders are generally not members of the SWAT team. They are the rank and file of the police department: where the rubber meets the road – the Patrolman or woman. On their shoulders they carry the weight of the department and they are most likely responsible for setting up containment and making initial estimates of the situation. Unfortunately, they often arrive some time before that well trained, well equipped SWAT Team. And the shooting is going on. Right now. In their face. People are actively getting killed and wounded right in front of them in these kind of incidents. They have life and death (including their own) decisions to make. Do I contain and report or do I go in and try to stop this right now and keep it from getting worse?
The part of this problem that I think is going to get worse? Gang members getting combat experience and bringing it home with them…
On January 12th, 2007, the FBI released a report titled “Gang Activity in the U.S. Armed Forces Increasing” (http://militarytimes.com/static/projects/pages/ngic_gangs.pdf) stated that members of nearly every major street gang have been identified on both domestic and international military installations. An interesting element of that report noted:
“Some gang members may also enlist to receive weapons, combat, and convoy support training; to obtain access to weapons and explosives; or as an alternative to incarceration. Upon discharge, they may employ their military training against law enforcement officials and rival gang members. Such military training could ultimately result in more organized, sophisticated, and deadly gangs, as well as an increase in deadly assaults on law enforcement officers.”
As stated in my article ‘SPECOPS/Private Contractors’ in the December 2008 issue of Soldier of Fortune magazine, “The face of contract work has changed forever.” The invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq created a vacuum that was quickly filled by Private Security Companies (PSC), all eager to cash in on the “big bucks” being paid for reconstruction efforts there. These security companies sprang up like mushrooms and heavily armed westerners buffaloed their way throughout the streets of Baghdad and, very quickly, the rest of the country.
In response, the Army ran its own investigation and concluded the FBI is wrong – gang violence on US Military installations is nowhere near as bad as in our cities. Though I am a retired soldier, who was a criminal investigator in the Army and I love them dearly, they missed the point on this one. We’re not worried about gangs working military housing areas. We’re worried that many of them will go right back into their comfort zone upon separation from the military and some of them are surely planning to use their knowledge for nefarious purposes…
February 28, 1997 saw a botched bank robbery being committed by two perpetrators firing assault weapons while wearing copious amounts of body armor in North Hollywood. That turned into one bloody incident that fit the “Active Shooter” modus operandi and completely overwhelmed the first responder capability of one of the best police forces in our nation – and there were only two of those guys! So where am I going with this? Training for the front line, first responder, law enforcement officer needs to catch up with the times. They need both an increased capability and an increased understanding of tactical operations, close quarter battle and small unit tactics. Picture this: Those 1997 bank robbers with combat experience possessing terroristic intent at the Mall of the Americas, on the National Mall on the 4th of July or at any major campus in the US… Now let’s figure they have ten members instead of two and a plan like the one executed in Mumbai.
Because I think I’m watching evolution in the terrorist world. I think they are taking a playing card from the criminal elements who demonstrated as far back as Columbine that this kind of modus operandi always seems to overwhelm initial response forces. I think bad guys of all kinds tend to repeat successful modus operandi until it no longer works. Because I think all of these things, it seems to me that there has to be a better capability within these front ranks to play “pick up ball” when it comes to these situations. To me, this is especially true in our smaller communities that don’t benefit from large, full time, well established SWAT teams.
There’s one more thing that we, as a nation, need to do and this applies to us all: we have to become aware and become involved. We can no longer really afford to pay attention only to the price of gas, the levels of unemployment, and whether or not GM is going to go through bankruptcy. We have to get our collective heads out of the sand.
And this brings me to the reason I’m writing this article: you, the reader. We need to enlist your help. You are the most critical element in the whole equation. Just one of you can do more to prevent such things from happening in our backyards than all of the law enforcement and security commuities combined! Be that alert video store clerk. Trust your instincts and judgment. Refuse to be an unwitting accomplice or a victim. If you think something suspicious is happening in your neighborhood, there is probably a good reason for your gut feeling. Report it! The difference between Mumbai and Fort Dix is that in New Jersey, an unsung hero gave our authorities actionable intelligence and they did something about it before it happened. Not only did that stop a potential terrorist act on domestic soil, it cost our society a lot less than it may have had they implemented their plan and it, sure as all get out, hurt a lot less.
If we can get the residents of our communities to do that, they may well help keep the next Columbine, Virginia Tech or Binghamton, NY from happening. They may keep Mumbai from happening…
Can you imagine if someone had done that in every other incident I’ve cited in this article? How many lives would be saved, what those people could have accomplished if they lived and how much grief would have been avoided by their families?
Oh, and by the way: this awareness and willingness to report suspicious activity may well keep that WMD thing away too. Wouldn’t that be cool?