I commented recently on a book concerning itself with home-grown terror cells (Leaderless Jihad), and have been thinking a little more about that concept. Here’s a view from this layman:
These independent, ‘self-radicalised’ offshoots of AQ can be expected to have some interesting defining characteristics.
Without necessarily having direct contact with the AQ “higher command” they are still influenced – perhaps “strategically and ideologically-guided” might better describe it - by AQ’s centre. Or, more accurately, by what they can discern from the centre – whether through the media, jihadist websites, underground DVDs, or even the latest rumour at the mosque or other meeting place.
Importantly however, we note that they are not directly commanded or controlled.
Developing that further, they are completely free to launch entirely autonomous operations. Free to set their own pace, and control all aspects of attacks. Factors such as: targeting, timing, logistics, resources, etc. are all directly in the hands of the devolved unit.
That said, they would seem likely to be influenced by the centre when making their choices. Targeting is probably the most interesting factor in an attack [well, until we see the first nuke I guess]. Looking - and I confess my lack of research here - at the targets of the homeboys over recent years, there are no great surprises: ground transportation, hotels, military bases (Fort Dix, the planned Australian army barracks, etc.), airports/airlines, and soft targets – large groups people, etc., etc. Just as if they’d selected them straight from the Jihadists’ Big Book Of Tactical Plays.
The range of weaponry open to these units is, naturally, potentially huge. From all of the conventional, historically-used ones, (small-arms, IEDs, suicide IEDs, heavier weapons – mortars, missiles, etc.) plus the misuse potential of a plethora of everyday civilian technologies: from crashing a school bus, to sabotaging the reactor of a nuclear power station.
The autonomy of the unit results in very limited communications with existing AQ and related structures (perhaps none). Limited in all facets: a restricted communication capability, a restricted need for communication and - significantly – restricted in the quantity of communications.
In terms of their personnel selection, the unit has many possibilities. Teams of different sizes, or even individuals, of varying racial and ethnic profiles and backgrounds.
Linked to the composition of the team, is its leadership. Simply thinking "I’m going to start my own cell” may be the only relevant qualification for command. Those who do lead home-grown units will be of unpredictable experience and have had a range of training, from those who have perhaps have undergone national military service somewhere, to those whose only preparation has been on their X-Box.
Financing of terrorists has been a major focus for the West for many years, and that would certainly be affected by the circumstances of a home-grown operation. Again, there is a wide potential spectrum, dependent on the individuals in the unit and who or what they have access to. But a reasonable presumption would be that the higher-value category of potential operations are less likely to be undertaken by them.
Having considered these characteristics, what might they mean for us – for Western counter-terrorism?
On influence/direction from AQ central: home-grown units may rely predominantly on open-source material for strategic guidance. This could be of great benefit to CT analysts in predicting their actions, as they have the same set of sources available to them. And this increases our chances in protecting (the correct) potential targets.
On autonomy, and the lack of central command and control: no orders from above of course mean none for the Western agencies’ superior technology to intercept. That could imply that ‘top-down’ pursuit will be almost impossible. To compensate, security forces could ‘flood’ the potential extremist population with informants – willing or unwilling – to try and make up for the deficit.
On targeting strategies, and weapons of choice: one recent example may be the bulldozer attacks in Israel, by individual Palestinians. But it could be insider sabotage of, well, just about anything: nuclear power station at the top-end, to cutting the brake-cable on the school bus at the other.
No weapons to acquire, no smuggling, no training requirement – using the everyday has many advantages for small-scale operations. From the CT perspective, however, the established tactic of tracking or disrupting supply of conventional (or even CBRN) weapons will now no longer be enough. The range of unconventional weapons is too great. Personnel are the sole underpinning requirement for these types of small-scale operations, and security forces must focus more strongly on them.
On lack of communications to identify and track down: home-grown AQ will need to be pro-actively found, before they can be pursued and dealt with. The long-standing reality whereby we rely on investigations of other network branches to reveal hidden cells simply will not happen.
On personnel issues and team constituents: a reasonable assumption may be that larger teams tend to result in poorer operational security. Another working assumption could be the probable correlation between larger attack teams and more spectacular attacks [9/11 and Mumbai being the most obvious two]. Consequently, therefore, smaller and more tightly controlled home-grown units would result in a prevalence of smaller attacks. Additionally, without security breaches to give them away, such attacks may more often be successfully initiated.
On limited funding for home-grown ops: this could likely to lead to a prevalence of low-cost attacks, which, of necessity, may steer their planners towards the types of unconventional attacks discussed above. And which we’ve already realised would be more difficult to detect and interdict.
On variable quality leadership for home-grown units: if they do have poor leaders, that could benefit the security forces, and maybe some thought can be applied by our agencies to the errors these leaders might make (especially in the planning and preparation stages). Again this brings us back to a focus on the personnel: CT bodies must increase efforts to identify and monitor experienced/trained terrorists before they put together one of these units – and that use of limited government resources might reap great benefits.
That’s enough from me for now.
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