Spotting terrorist intelligence gathering and potential terrorist threats is important for all of us to be aware of. It takes paying attention and knowing things to look for.
Recently, when working security for a concert at the University, my partner and I found an unattended backpack which we called in. While the backpack turned out to be a student worker’s and not a threat, the important thing was to notice it and report it. Sadly, some things go unnoticed and don’t get reported and bad things occur afterwards.
In Howard Linett’s book, Living With Terrorism: Survival Lessons from the Streets of Jerusalem, he discusses spotting terrorist intelligence gathering. An extremely important point he makes is this, “The mere fact that something has caught your attention is in itself a warning sign. Trust your instincts, and never be hesitant or embarrassed to report what you’ve observed. The cliche is all too true: better safe than sorry!” This is why we called in and had the back pack checked out. This advice is important for both potential threats like an unattended back pack (remember the Boston Marathon bombings) and possible terrorist intelligence gathering.
It is up to all of us to keep our eyes and ears open for potential terrorist activity and to report suspicious activity. Here is a little that Linett wrote in Living With Terrorism on spotting terrorist intelligence gathering to help you get in the right frame of mind of what to look for and what should make you suspicious.
Spotting Terrorist Intelligence Gathering
For a change, I’ve gone on an early afternoon five-mile job instead of a walk. It is the Sabbath, so there are few cars driving where I am running down the neighborhood’s main street. Several hundred yards up the street, I see a car. It catches my attention because something about it is odd. It is moving at a constant five miles an hour, but it does not appear to be looking for a specific address. It has not stopped to ask for directions from any of the people it has passed.
As I approach the car, I see two Arab men in the front seat. One is driving; the other, with a large, commercial-size video camera on his shoulder, is carefully filming the entire length of the street – every doorway, building, alley, green area – everything. As we pass each other, I see what appears to be at least 100 videotapes in the backseat of the car.
Clearly these two men are filming the entirety of our neighborhood’s main streets inch by inch. I stop a passing police car and report my observations to the officers. They respond, “They are making a documentary and have a permit.”
Right. That film may very well make it into some documentary, but copies of it will be used for any number of terrorist orientation and preattack briefings. Since I encountered the film crew, six attacks have taken place in our neighborhood.
Photographing and videotaping are the basic tools of today’s intelligence gatherers. But simply “exploring” and using their eyes is also a terrorist modus operandi. Examples: the group of eight men going for a walk through the neighborhood who have absolutely no business being here, or the goat herder grazing his six goats in the sparse shrubbery by the entrance to the supermarket in the shopping center when there is lots of better grazing much closer to his village. It’s not only men – terrorist organizations recruit sympathetic male and female teenagers to sit, observe, and record.
The openness and freedom that democracy provides are fully exploited by the terrorists. Sometimes it may even lead them to get so cocky or sloppy that they go about their spying casually, out in the open. When you see them, your initial reaction is one of simple disbelief at what you are witnessing. For example, one time I encountered two young men, not locals, sitting in the front seat of their parked car on one of our neighborhood’s main drags, about 20 yards from the unguarded and accessible fence around the IDF’s Central Command Headquarters compound. The men had a large, detailed, aerial map of the area (which the public is not supposed to possess) spread across the car’s dashboard. They ignored my interest in what they were doing; so contemptuous were they that they were still there when the police I notified showed up and took them in for questioning.
It doesn’t happen only in Israel. When we lived in the United States, suspicious individuals were taken in for questioning when they were discovered videotaping Jewish schools in the Baltimore area. Those law enforcement professionals who caught them deserve a commendation for heads-up work. You need to follow their example.
The way to counter terrorist intelligence gathering is simple: if you see someone doing something unusual or inexplicable, get suspicious. As one of my best law professors taught us: “Do the gut test. If your gut says to you something is not right, believe your gut.” The mere fact that something has caught your attention is in itself a warning sign. Trust your instincts, and never be hesitant or embarrassed to report what you’ve observed. The cliche is all too true: better safe than sorry!
A word on “ethnic stereotyping.” Despite its political incorrectness, in the real world it is a basic tool that should be used to determine who merits further scrutiny. If, in my job as a member of Israel’s Civil Guard, I’m looking for members of the “Jewish underground” thought responsible for attacks on Arabs, I’m not going to stop and check cars being driven by Arab ladies. I’m going to stop individuals who my own experience tells me exhibit the characteristic speech, accent, dress, look, and demeanor I associate with a member of the Jewish radical fringe. Whom I stop is as much educated intuition as agency-generated profile.
Ethnic stereotyping is a useful tool, but it is of relative value. Terrorists know what indicators trigger suspicion, and they employ countermeasures. They will use guile and deceit when gathering intelligence, posing as tourists or members of the media in order to videotape and photograph. When positioning themselves to mount an attack, they will not jump out of a black SUV waving AK-47s and wearing black-and-white checkered kaffiyehs around their heads. After several suicide bombings in the greater Tel Aviv area, the police summed it up by saying: “The terrorists fit in better in Tel Aviv than do most Jerusalemites. They know the latest up-to-date fashion trends and men’s hair-styles even better than Israelis from out of town.”
In The USA
Spotting Terrorist Intelligence Gathering 2On October 6, 2004, the U.S. Department of Education issued a letter to elementary and secondary schools across the country in response to the attack by Chechen terrorists against a school in Beslan, Russia. The purpose of the letter was to assist staff in preparing for the possibility of a similar attempt against an American school. Part of the letter listed pointers from the Department of Homeland Security and FBI for detecting potential terrorist surveillance of school facilities and activities. The surveillance indicators listed – which can be applied to any target location – include:
- Unusual interest in security, entry points, and access controls or barriers such as fences or walls.
- Interest in obtaining site plans for schools, but routes, attendance lists, and other information about a school, its employees, or students.
- Unusual behavior, such as staring at or quickly looking away from personnel or vehicles entering or leaving designated facilities or parking areas.
- Observation of security reaction drills or procedures.
- Increase in anonymous telephone or e-mail threats to facilities in conjunction with suspected surveillance incidents.
- Foot surveillance involving individuals working together.
- Mobile surveillance using bicycles, scooters, motorcycles, cars, trucks, sport utility vehicles, limousines, boats, or small aircraft.
- Prolonged static surveillance using people disguised as panhandlers, shoe shiners, food, newspaper or flower vendors, or street sweepers not previously seen in the area.
- Discreet use of still cameras, video recorders, or note-taking at non-tourist locations.
- Use of multiple sets of clothing and identification or the use of sketching materials (paper, pencils, etc.).
- Questioning of security of facility personnel.
- Unexplained presence of unauthorized persons in places where they should not be.
Check out Living With Terrorism: Survival Lessons from the Streets of Jerusalem from amazon: