Paris, terrorism and the level of response

Following the November 13, 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, French president Francois Hollande has vowed that the response from France will be 'merciless'. The degree to which France is able to mount such an action will depend on part on whom the actual perpetrators are (given the direct assailants were all killed during the terrorist assault, the focus moves to discover whom planned, funded and supported the action). Daesh have claimed responsibility for the attacks however it remains to be established whether the attacks were executed by external persons coming into France, internal cadres and/or local radicalised residents operating within the French Republic or a combination of both. Early reports of a Syrian passport being found on one of the terrorists and transit through Greece by that person only provide minor confirmation of an external link.

France's involvement to date in the global anti-extremist campaign has been measured with its main commitment being the Sahel region of Africa. In the Syria/Iraq region, French aircraft have flown more than 1,285 missions against Daesh targets in Iraq but only two in Syria. There are six French fighter aircraft operating from the United Arab Emirates and six fighter aircraft stationed in Jordan. The nuclear aircraft carrier, Charles de Gaulle is being deployed for a support role to the region as previously announced on November 4th. The military assets therefore are limited at the present time.

As global intelligence organisation, Stratfor comments -

"France has numerous options for retaliation at its disposal, but its response will be conditioned by who was ultimately responsible. If it is found that the Islamic State core group was indeed behind the Nov. 13 attack, France will likely ramp up its Syrian air operations. The skies over Syria, however, are already congested with coalition and Russian aircraft. With this in mind, the French may choose to retaliate by focusing instead on the Islamic State in Iraq, or perhaps even other Islamic State provinces in places such as Libya. Another option would be to increase French programs to train and support anti-Islamic State forces in Iraq and Syria, or even to conduct commando strikes against key leadership nodes. France also has the option of deploying an expeditionary force like it did in the Sahel, although that would probably require outside airlift capacity from NATO allies, especially the United States."

The Jihadist threat within - Understanding the Boston Marathon bombings

The revelation that the alleged perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombings are Chechen brothers, Dzokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, migrants of a few years to the United States, together with their families adds a new dimension to the nature of the bomb attack. Chechen nationals have been waging a war against the Russian Federation for many years following two wars in the mid 1990s and early 2000s.

In their long, violent struggle against the Kremlin, Chechen radicals have hit soft civilian targets many times. In 2010, two female suicide bombers from Dagestan detonated explosives in the Moscow metro, killing at least 40 people and injuring 100. A year later, another suicide bomber struck Moscow’s airport killing 37 and wounding 180. Other attacks include the infamous Breslan school seige in 2004, where 334 hostages died, most of them children. Intelligence company Stratfor summarises the Boston Marathon bombings thus:

“This case highlights our analysis that the jihadist threat now predominantly stems from grassroots operatives who live in the West rather than teams of highly trained operatives sent to the United States from overseas, like the team that executed the 9/11 attacks. This demonstrates how the jihadist threat has diminished in severity but broadened in scope in recent years -- a trend we expect to continue.

There will always be plenty of soft targets in a free society, and it is incredibly easy to kill people, even for untainred operatives. In this case, the brothers conducted an attack that was within their capabilities rather than attempting something more grandiose that would require outside assistance -- and which could therefore have put them in jeopardy of running into a government informant as they sought help. It is thus important for citizens to practice good situational awareness and to serve as grassroots defenders against the grassroots threat”.

In this sense the West will always be a target. The real question is whether they were acting as a small independant team or were there other connections and associations to extremist groups.

The War Without End - Shadows of Vietnam

The war is Afghanistan shows no sign of any abatement as this description of events in Kabul from StratFor  demonstrates. The reality is the Taliban could only operate with such a high degree of mobility within restricted zones with the cooperation of persons within the current Afghan security forces.

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A team of as many as 10 Afghan Taliban militants armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades mounted an assault Sept. 13 in a high-security zone in the capital Kabul against the U.S. Embassy among other targets. At least four of the attackers were likely suicide bombers and detonated themselves during the attack. The attack began at 1:30 p.m. local time and has been underway for close to two hours.

The militants took over a building in an area near Abdul Haq Chowk Square, a location in close proximity to Afghan government and Western security installations, including NATO headquarters. While there have been many attacks in Kabul, this incident is one of the rare occasions that militants have demonstrated the capability to get extremely close to the heart of the Western military and intelligence presence in the Afghan capital. The ability to get numerous operatives armed with explosives and heavy guns into this area could not have been possible without the Taliban obtaining aid from Afghan security personnel posted in high-security areas.

The attackers are unlikely to succeed in doing much damage, and they will likely be overpowered by coalition forces — a fact the planners of the attack knew in advance. The light weapons the attackers were armed with simply could not cause significant damage to a hardened facility such as the U.S. Embassy. Therefore, the attack was meant to be more of a psychological operation than a physical one. This attack, likely the work of the Haqqani network, is designed to undermine U.S. efforts to negotiate with the senior leadership of the Afghan Taliban movement.

Mission Ultra Complex: The War in Afghanistan

Australia's involvement in Afghanistan is crystalised in Chris Master's carefully constructed two part documentary 'A Careful War' for the 4 Corners program of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Speaking at the Lowy Institute for International Policy on 30 July 2010, Masters commented that no single media account of this conflict is accurate - the reality of the situation in Afghanistan is rather that there are hundreds of many individual different conflicts being fought throughout cities, towns and villages of that country. Masters also highlighted a weakness of understanding by the Australian public of the 'battle space' being occupied by Australian soldiers serving in that theatre of operations. More than any previous military commitment, Australian soldiers are required to be part fighter, diplomat, anthropologist and social worker - a complex set of skills to utilise simultaneously while still within a combat environment. The ability to continue such an intense and difficult military commitment for several more years and outlast the Taliban will test the resolve of the western powers as well as the Afghan National Army to fill the void once troop withdrawals occur.

A War without End - the Taliban and Afghanistan

The war in Afghanistan shows little sign of resolution and the strike by the Taliban through a bombing against a CIA operation highlights the capacity of the group to strike back at will. The loss of seven CIA agents who were killed in the attack in Khost province has brought into the focus the clandestine and difficult war being fought by America’s intelligence agencies against the Taliban and al-Qaeda  in the wild border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Operating bases such as Forward Operating Base Chapman, are the main edge of American military and intelligence counter-terrorism operations in the tribal belt and have the objective of hunting down senior figures in al-Qaeda and their allies, the Taliban, and eliminating them. While the CIA’s main strike weapons are the remote drones which fly high over the border areas 24 hours a day, watching and listening to telephone networks, human intelligence is far harder to acquire yet absolutely essential for effective strikes. But gaining such vital and prized information among remote communities  is diffcult and dangerous given these commmunities are suspicious of any outsider and particualrly foreigners. The potential for inflitration and counter-strikes is very high which was demonstrated all too effectively this week.

What price for justice? Scotland plumbs the dustbin over Lockerbie

From the Stratfor Intelligence newsletter: On Aug. 24, 2009 Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill addressed a special session of the Scottish Parliament. The session was called so that MacAskill could explain why he had decided to release Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the former Libyan intelligence officer convicted of terrorism charges in connection with the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, and who had been expected to spend the rest of his life in prison. MacAskill said he granted al-Megrahi a compassionate release because al-Megrahi suffers from terminal prostate cancer and is expected to live only a few months. The Aug. 20 release of al-Megrahi ignited outrage in both the United Kingdom and the United States and FBI Director Robert Mueller released to the press contents of an uncharacteristically blunt and critical letter he had written to MacAskill in which Mueller characterized al-Megrahi’s release as inexplicable and “detrimental to the cause of justice.” Mueller told MacAskill in the letter that the release “makes a mockery of the rule of law.”

Al-Megrahi received a hero’s welcome upon his arrival in Tripoli, Libya with global broadcast footage of him being welcomed and embraced by Libyan leader Moammar Gadaffi (pictured left above ).

The Scottish Government should never have released this intelligence agent regardless of the compassionate grounds stated relating to a terminal health diagnosis or the concern about martydom. The total loss of life involved from the terrorism act was 243 passengers, 16 flight crew from the aircraft and 11 people on the ground in the small town of Lockerbie, Scotland (who were killed by parts of the falling aircraft). From the forensic investigation it was found that a number of people had survived the initial breakup of the aircraft in flight until impact on the ground below. Libya continues to deny responsibility for the action although its agent was convicted and the country itself paid compensation to the families of those affected.