Counter-Terrorism & Counter-Intelligence Movement Essay

Abstract

International terrorism has been the most vividly discussed topic in the US intelligence community for more than a decade. Since the terrorist attack of 9/11, a number of strong terrorist groups have been formed, including Al Qaeda, the Taliban and others. A great deal of analytical expertise by US intelligence community has been focused on determining the locations, members and plans of such terrorist groups. Intelligence agencies in the USA alone have long realized the danger of terrorism that will further evolve if not to take proper measures to eliminate it. It is a serious threat to the American community and the whole world. Although the intelligence community of the US failed to give a warning of the 9/11 attacks, it is evidently because terrorist groups are difficult to target. That is why the unnoticed actions of their members are impossible to prevent and a number of serious questions remains.

The following paper will investigate the issue of counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence movement analyzing the strategies and measures that are taken by intelligence community to fight against terrorist groups and organizations. The paper also analyzes different terrorist groups in terms of their threat to the community and the tactics and strategies they use. The paper will provide a thorough investigation of positive and negative sides of the counter-terrorism and intelligence community and give details as to why it is important to stand against the ever-increasing threat of terrorism. Overall, the paper will discuss the issue of counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence movement to full extent, so as to give a clear understanding of the problem analyzed.

Key words: counter-terrorism, terrorist groups, intelligence community, strategic coordination, organizational structure, public support, controlled territory.

Overview of the problem

Counter-terrorism is greatly dependent on human intelligence also known as humint. This implies the use of specially trained agents to acquire necessary information. On the one hand, it represents one of the most cost-effective intelligence strategies. On the other hand, however, it is undoubtedly difficult to realize and highly dangerous for those who are involved in it. Mistakes made during this procedure can be detrimental and embarrassing for the whole state, preventing the community from achieving significant goals. It is Congress that decides whether the significance of human intelligence is more important than the associated risks.

Furthermore, counter-terrorism demands proper collaboration between intelligence agencies and law enforcement. It is explained by the fact that some terrorist might need to be brought to the court, while others can be eliminated by means of military force and associated actions. Recently, there have been taken a number of measures to create conditions for proper collaboration between these communities, although some people believe that terrorist acts might have been encouraged by the poor level of information exchange between the law enforcement and intelligence agencies and lack of organizational responsibility (Jackson, 2006). Overall, the missions of both intelligence community and law enforcement agency should be assigned and overseen by the Congress.

As for the military operations aimed at fighting against terrorism, it should be admitted that they are greatly dependent on precise and real-time information received from the intelligence agencies supporting the anti-terrorist campaigns. The Congress should also oversee the level of support to military campaigns from the side of intelligence agencies. This also refers to the counter-terrorist military operations.

Definition of concepts

In order to fully understand the notions used in this paper, it is important to give their definitions. Thus, the notions of terrorism, counter-intelligence and intelligence are often discussed in the literary sources examining the threat of terrorism and ways to address it. The definition of concepts will help to make a broader insight into the theoretical and practical issues on terrorism.

Bruce Hoffman divided terrorist groups into sub-national and non-state units that employ violence and aggression to achieve political goals (Benjamin & Simon, 2002). While terrorism focuses on violence and aggression to provoke fear among the political structures, insurgency can be defined as a fight of the poorly prepared and weaker party against the much stronger one. However, unlike terrorism, insurgency implies using political resources with the aim of weakening the political system or diminishing the power of the stronger party. This leads to an assumption that terrorist counter-intelligence is a set of measures by means of which terrorist groups attempt to prevent their adversaries from getting the precise information about their terrorist activities, plans and members. A terrorist group is trying to do this by means of keeping their activities in secret or providing its adversary with wrongful and misleading information concerning its activities (Hoffman, 2006).

As for the definition of intelligence, it needs to be noted that it is also important for this research. Intelligence can be defined as analysis of information by the organizational leaders and national security agents. All of these concepts will be analyzed in this paper to provide a broader overview of the threat of terrorism and measures to be taken against it.

A number of studies indicate that terrorist groups have to encounter counter-intelligence challenges that prevent them from operating more efficiently (Alexander, 2006). The existing literature on terrorism helps to develop a basis for a more thorough and systematic analysis of counter-intelligence operations of different agencies. In particular, the studies on terrorism are mainly based on the independent factors influencing the counter-intelligence capabilities of terrorist groups. These factors include organizational structure, control of the territory and support. All of these factors are thoroughly analyzed in the existing researches dealing with anti-terrorist measures and counter-intelligence.

Terrorist groups and their organizational structure

The majority of terrorist groups fail to survive during the first several years of their activity. All of the terrorist groups, including those that managed to survive, encounter a number of challenges, including the constant threat of being eliminated. This happens in case their activities are discovered and their plans and members become known to the law enforcement agencies and intelligence communities. However, different terrorist groups deal with these challenges better than others, and this forms an implication for the US security and government’s efforts of fighting against terrorism.

In fact, there are three major factors that influence the counter-intelligence strengths and weaknesses of the terrorist groups. These include organizational structure of the terrorist groups and their access to certain territories. The most dangerous terrorist groups known to the global community include Al Qaeda, the PIRA, Black September, Fatah and others. All of these terrorist groups encounter a number of counter-intelligence challenges that have a subtle or direct impact on the efficiency of their actions. Some of the terrorist groups, however, find ways to deal with the counter-intelligence issues and are better prepared for survival. In addition, most leaders of terrorist groups strive for making their actions public. This aspect diminishes the need of such terrorist groups to operate secretly, thus making it unnecessary to think about additional security. However, the intelligence agencies are striving to come up with inventive ways of eliminating terrorist groups that represent a threat to the security of global community.

As for the organizational structure of counter-intelligence communities, it should be noted that strict control structures help improve the management and coordination of the groups, but at the same time fail to implement tactical innovation (Hoffman, 2006). Strategic management is useful in terms of fulfilling intelligence tasks, distributing intelligence throughout the organizational structures and making the groups aware of the counter-intelligence threats. At the same time, strategic management and coordination pose vulnerabilities to the terrorist groups. The terrorist group ETA, for instance, trained its members to deal with government surveillance by means of sharing information with couriers anonymously, rather than using postal services or telephone. In this regard, it should be noted that the majority of terrorist groups can be commanded poorly or strictly. As a result, the terrorist groups will have to find a place somewhere between these extremities and will be subjected to a number of strength and weaknesses of the organizational structure.

Strategic management is also needed for incorporating organizational strategies that represent a process limiting the sharing of information in an organization so as not to disclose intelligence that is not supposed to be received by unauthorized individuals. In order to implement organizational strategy, a high level of strategic coordination is needed to prevent excessive sharing of information. All these aspects help to come to several conclusions that should be made clear. First, terrorist groups with severe command and strong organizational structure are subjected to better counter-intelligence training in comparison with the groups that are poorly commanded. Second, the terrorist groups with strict organizational structure are more exposed to the efforts of its adversary to achieve a high level of penetration and carry out counter-intelligence operations.

Researchers of organizational structure of terrorist groups analyze how the environment within an organization influences its internal structure. According to Gilles, threats posed by the external environment encourage centralization of control and result in limiting the flow of information (Gilles, 2005). Centralization of control implies a reduced number of those who make decisions and increased control of decision-making processes at higher levels of the organization. A number of researches suggest that poorly controlled organizations can be more efficient in solving complicated problems if radical changes are implemented in the organizational environment when its functioning is under threat. It leads to a conclusion that external threats faced by terrorist groups are likely to make them more centralized and strictly commanded in future.

Terrorist group counter-intelligence

Half of the terrorist groups fail to survive their first years of activity and only a few survive the first ten years of existence. The activity of terrorist groups comes to an end for a number of reasons. Some of them lose their major leaders, while others turn into non-aggressive political units or are unable to pass the management to the future generations of terrorists. However, all terrorist structures encounter a more trivial threat to their existence. This is a threat of discovery of their terrorist activity as well as their plans and list of members by the intelligence and law enforcement communities. The terrorist groups that are unable to keep their movements and plans in secret are likely to be eliminated without any additional efforts. Terrorist groups that manage to survive for many years achieve this owing the development of elaborate methods for keeping secrecy and staying unknown. Such strategies of terrorist groups are known as counter-intelligence. In this regard, it should be noted that counter-intelligence and intelligence play a pivotal role in how the terrorist groups are discovered and eliminated and how they deal with threats posed to their existence. The majority of researches dealing with terrorist groups and their activity fail to analyze the important issues and most of the terrorist groups that face counter-intelligence problems fail to survive, so it becomes unnecessary to study them.

Understanding counter-intelligence of terrorist groups is important for a number of reasons. First, the knowledge of terrorist weaknesses will help the government to more efficiently oversee and eliminate the terrorist groups. Second, the proper understanding of terrorist groups’ capabilities in terms of counter-intelligence will help realize the size of the terrorist groups, its organizational structure and the ability to deal with counter-terrorist actions.

Public support of terrorist groups

In order to further analyze the issue of counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence, it is important to investigate the concept of public support that will help to clearly understand the essence of the terrorist group operations. The notion of public support is thoroughly investigated providing certain insight into the counter-intelligence of terrorist groups. To keep this paper narrowly focused on the operations of terrorist groups, the research will use the information on insurgencies that are widely recognized as terrorist groups. It has been proved that the secret terrorist groups are unable to survive without the support and assistance from the side of population. The support can be either active or passive. The study of aggressive operations of terrorist groups shows that their major task was to ensure the sympathy and assistance of the public (Hoffman, 2006).

Wolf and Leites admit that among the most significant forms of assistance for certain unauthorized actions is refusal of the public to give out information to the governmental authorities about the group’s activity. A lot of terrorist groups use the support of the public as their major means of protection against the intelligence and law-enforcement agencies. In many cases, it guarantees the long-term survival of terrorist groups. All this prevents the intelligence community from the identification of counter-intelligence threats from the side of terrorist groups. For instance, from time to time PIRA, which is an abbreviation for the Provisional Irish Republican Army, used local public authorities in the governmental agencies of the country to identify the organization’s members who were earning and spending too much. This was an indicating factor that the member of the group was earning an excessive sum of money as a British informant (Bloom, 2004).

The resources on intelligence and counter-terrorism measures provide a restricted overview of the terrorist group counter-intelligence. A great number of resources related to terrorism are focused on the motivations and decision-making of the terrorist groups and policies of the government in response to their activities. The researches on intelligence and counter-terrorism mainly refer to the work of intelligence practitioners and are based on the appraisal of the counter-terrorism communities. Very few of researches are aimed at thorough examination of the intelligence and terrorist group operations. This research represents an overview of the existing literature and at the same time is aimed at filling the gap in the existing literature on terrorism and intelligence. The existing literature represents the framework for analyzing and predicting the activities of terrorist groups as well as understanding their strategies and motivations of their decisions.

Controlled territory and counter-intelligence

Controlled territory is an area where a terrorist group operates and is ensured security. Controlled territory guarantees freedom of movement to the terrorist group within its boundaries. There are not many resources on the use of controlled territories by the terrorist groups, and this makes this issue limited to some extent. The control of territory is inevitably connected with the public support. It is highly unlikely that a terrorist organization can control some territory for a long time without the direct or subtle support from the local public. There are instances when terrorist groups lose public support if the controlled territories are inappropriately managed.

The accessibility of the controlled region may give the terrorist groups a number of counter-intelligence benefits. The controlled territory provides terrorists an opportunity to conduct trainings, communicate and directly meet with other members of the group. It gives certain level of freedom that is not available in hostile regions. For instance, in 1970s, the terrorist group Fatah managed to keep its activity and plans in secrecy more effectively in the occupied territory of Beirut, than in the uncontrolled regions. However, controlled territory can restrict the group in a number of ways giving the adversary side a target to destruct. A terrorist group can remain secret within the borders of the controlled territory, but at the same time it gives the adversary a reason to attack the occupied region. Moreover, the terrorist group’s movements and actions can be easily monitored.

All this leads to a conclusion that the terrorist group on the controlled territory can enjoy a higher level of secrecy and security in comparison with the terrorist group acting beyond the borders of the controlled region. On the other hand, a terrorist group staying in the controlled region turns to be more vulnerable to the efforts of its adversaries to trace the group and find out more about its actions and members. Furthermore, it is evident that public support and the control over certain territory are interrelated factors that have both beneficial and unfavorable sides.

Strategies and tactics of terrorist groups

Terrorist groups often strive to receive public support by directly contacting the host public authorities. Moreover, terrorists can live within the host population, whereas the authorities of the government are perceived as hostile. In such a way, the host population providing support to the terrorist group is capable to diminish its counter-intelligence vulnerabilities in case the population assists the terrorist group in identifying the intelligence agents and their operations. Sometimes, a terrorist group gains public support by means of more elaborate strategies and tactics. For instance, the population may experience social pressure not to cooperate with the governmental agencies or may be afraid of the consequences of being suspected as a collaborator.

One more means of receiving public support by terrorist groups is the use of local and global media resources. A research on terrorism in South Africa has shown that the use of local media resources greatly helped to generate public support on the part of local terrorist groups (Murphy, 2002). Terrorists used media in different ways. First of all, they used it to send messages to the population about the ineffectiveness of the government. Secondly, they tried to influence media by means of generating long-term relationships with local journalists and organizations. In this regard, it should be admitted that both government and terrorist groups managed to achieve significant success in exploiting media and manipulating the contents of what was portrayed in it for their own benefit (Pedahzur & Perliger, 2006).

The researches on terrorist groups and public support indicate the same. Mia Bloom, a member of militant Islamic Palestinian group indicated in his study that public support greatly influenced the outcome of the group’s use of suicide bombings (Bloom, 2004). Some other studies indicate that terrorist groups have managed to efficiently use the method of suicide bombing to change the host government’s policies. It might be suggested that public support for the terrorist group played a pivotal role in this activity. Though many studies emphasize a number of benefits of public support, there is almost no theoretical base for such suggestion.

As for public support and counter-intelligence, it should be noted that the record of terrorist group activity indicates that there is an essential pressure between keeping the terrorist activity in secret and revealing it to public. The leaders of terrorist groups often spend a significant amount of time on improving the public image so as to gain popularity or improve the morale of the group. For instance, Abu Sayyaf known as the leader of Filipino terrorist group spent much time to maintain relationships with the local media and give them false information about his struggle against the security forces of the country (Shultz, 2004). Another example shows how the tactics of terrorist groups sometimes fail to be efficient. Thus, in 1975, the Greek terrorist group gave out a thorough account of how its members murdered the US official in their native country by means of taking advantage of the counter-intelligence weaknesses of the local police (Murphy, 2002). Although, the terrorist group took measures to prove to the local public that it was wholly responsible for this operation, the local security authorities were given an opportunity to find out more about the operations of the terrorist group and implement security measures.

In the same manner, different terrorist group leaders have a tendency to use the support of media to their advantage. Although media assistance for the terrorist group might help it to gain popularity, sometimes the terrorist group leaders gain unfavorable popularity that is not beneficial for the activity of the group. The terrorist group leader Yassir Arafat, for instance, greatly craved for publicity and constantly provided some sort of information to the US reporters. Although this helped him to become more popular, it also gave the adversary side a chance to get access to valuable data on his place of residence and state of health. It also provided important information about the terrorist group itself. All this leads to a conclusion that terrorist groups receiving public support have much more counter-intelligence support on the part of the local public in comparison with those who do not crave for public support. Furthermore, terrorist groups that try to gain popularity are more likely to give out important information about their members and activity owing their efforts to gain public support.

Strengths and weaknesses of counter-terrorism and intelligence community

It is well known that 9/11 attack was the milestone in the history of the United States. The use of airplanes for the destruction of local buildings and the inevitable loss of numerous human lives is undoubtedly a tragedy that was especially designed by the terrorist groups who initiated it. The attack on the territory of the United Stated forced the government authorities to see the world from a different perspective and provoked new methods of response from the side of the local government. However, terrorism is not a modern concept. It has been present for many years. Some scientists are of the opinion that terrorist groups and their methods of operation started changing in the late 90s years and evolved into a phenomenon known as “new terrorism” (Atwan, 2006).

Today, terrorism is associated with a number of characteristic features such as the ease of transportation especially for migrant employees and refugees, free access to weapons and information technologies, transition from global conflicts to ethnic and religious disputes, free sharing of information owing the use of information technology and newly established communication platforms and many others.Owing these characteristics, it should be admitted that since the nature of terrorism has changed, the legal strategies employed by the counter-terrorism and intelligence communities should also change.

Counter-terrorism tactics during the administration of the former President are based on what is known as the Bush doctrine. It refers to the statements Bush made in his speeches after the attacks on September 11. The first statement was addressed to the global community and the nations harboring terrorism were called the hostile ones (Oberschall, 2004). This statement was aimed at justifying the invasion of Afghanistan and actions directed to fight against Al Qaeda. One more statement was directed to the American nation and focused on the need to rise against terrorism and defend the United States from the threat of terrorist acts (Kurz, 2006). As for this policy, it was aimed at justifying the invasion of Iraq. The statements made by Bush were critical to the global community, leading to two wars and providing justification for a number of strategic actions including drone attacks that continue to be employed by the current President. However, the strategy of current administration failed in a number of ways. The strategy employed by the government of the US includes the use of drones and enhanced means of interrogation, rendition of suspects that implies capturing and interrogating the suspected terrorists and other issues that form the basis of current counter-terrorism measures.

The Obama administration promised to restrict some of the excessive measures taken by the Bush administration, especially in regard to the employment of enhanced methods of interrogating suspected terrorists. In 2011, the Obama administration released the National Strategy for Counter-terrorism that included the four major principles guiding the efforts against terrorism. These principles include the following: adherence to the key values of the US; creation of security partnerships; appropriate use of counter-terrorism means and tools; formation of the culture of resilience. In this regard, it should be indicated that the core values of the US mentioned above include the legal issues such as respect for privacy, civil liberties and human rights and bringing suspected terrorists to justice among others.

Among the most significant strategies employed by the Obama administration is the use of drones. It continues to legally justify the use of drones for eliminating suspected terrorists directed to enhance security. However, the strategies used by the current government are not always effective. The actions taken after the 9/11 might be considered successful as there have been no further external terrorist attacks on the territory of the United States. Nevertheless, many studies indicate that the use of drones has caused not only destruction of terrorists, but also loss of innocent lives. That is why the strategies used by the US government against terrorism have a number of strengths and weaknesses that should be taken into account.

The importance of intelligence in countering terrorism is based on three major aspects. First, it is the role of intelligence in destructing terrorist groups and preventing them from committing terrorist acts. Second is the role of the investigation after the incident has taken place. Third, it is the contribution of intelligence to the reinforcement of security and protective measures. A number of studies that form the basis of this research give important information on the role of intelligence in taking counter-terrorism measures after the 9/11 attack. Most of the resources lay emphasis on the counter-terrorism strategies employed by current government of the USA. Some of them also offer the analysis of tactics used by the former administration of the US. In general, the literature on intelligence and counter-terrorism bristles with valuable information on the issue of ever-increasing threat of terrorism not only within the US, but in the whole world.

Conclusion

Terrorism has long grown from an insignificant concern to the most acute problem of security in many countries. There are few countries that have not suffered from some kind of terrorist actions, and counter-terrorism organizations are aimed at dealing with this ever-growing concern of modern days. Counter-terrorism measures including political, military and diplomatic have a number of strengths and weaknesses, but are still effective in fighting against terrorism. Counter-terrorism demands efficient intelligence, but counter-terrorism intelligence of modern days differs from the one that was needed in previous years, although the present intelligent community is quite well-organized. A number of important challenges faced by intelligence lead to the fact that the activities of the United States directed to eliminate terrorism can be perceived as controversial both within the country and globally.

Counter-terrorism intelligence agencies and law enforcement are more and more interrelated, and this becomes a common phenomenon of the present days. Some people believe that the activity against terrorism will become more and more intense and will lead to the need of transforming the defense structure of the United States to take ultimate advantage of information technology. Counter-terrorism campaigns have a great influence on the intelligence communications and other related activities. However, it should be noted that the modern war against terrorism has reinforced the need for cooperation between intelligence and law enforcement agencies with the aim of countering terrorism. Even though such terrorist groups as Al Qaeda are effectively dealt with, the common geopolitical worries remain. It can be difficult to eliminate the terrorist threats, but still the US intelligence community puts much effort to deal with this issue. Its strategies and tactics constantly vary, but some of them proved to be quite efficient in countering terrorism.

The above paper analyzed a number of issues related to counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence movement that is carried out in present days. It dealt with such aspects as the cooperation between law enforcement and intelligence community, public support of terrorist groups, strategies and tactics of different terrorist organizations, weaknesses and strengths of counter-terrorism measures and some others. All of these issues are discussed in the paper in detail and are aimed at giving a clear understanding of the counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence movement.

 

References

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Atwan, A. B. (2006). The secret history of Al Qaida. London: Saqi Books.

Becker, J. (2001). The PLO: The rise and fall of the Palestine Liberation Organization. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Benjamin, D., & Simon, S. (2002). The age of sacred terror. New York: Random House.

Bloom, M. M. (2004). Palestinian suicide bombing: Public support, market share, and outbidding. Political Science Quarterly, 119(1).

Byman, D. (2005). Strategic surprise and the September 11 attacks. Annu. Rev. Polit. Sci., 8, 145–70.

Gilles, K. (2005). The roots of radical Islam. London: Saqi Books.

Hoffman, B. (2006). The use of the internet by Islamic extremists. US Intelligence Committee.

Jackson, B. (2006). Groups, networks or movements: A command and control driven approach to classifying terrorist organizations and its applications to Al Qaeda. Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 29. 

Kurz, A. N. (2005). Fatah and the politics of violence: The institutionalization of a popular struggle. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press.

Murphy, C. (2002). Passion for Islam: Shaping the modern Middle East. New York: Scribner.

Oberschall, A. (2004). Explaining terrorism: The contribution of collective action theory. Sociological Theory, 22(1).

Pedahzur, A, & Perliger, A. (2006). The Changing nature of suicide attacks: A  social network perspective. Social Forces, 84(4).

Ronfeldt, D., & Arquilla, J. (2001). Networks and netwars: The future of terror, crime and militancy. The Rand Corporation.

Shultz, S. (2004). Imperial hubris: Why the West is losing the war on terror. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, Inc.

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"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

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