Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Building Snowmobiles: Open Source Counter-Terrorism
The other day I read an interesting post over at Global Guerrillas called ‘open source jihad’. Open source is a concept borrowed by the computer and software development community with a philosophy derived by what Eric Raymond conceived in his essay ‘The Cathedral and the Bazaar’. (see below)
What John Robb was referring to specifically was Al Qaeda’s new open source jihad magazine called Inspire. It is kind of a comical magazine, but it is also a symbol of what open source warfare looks like in today’s modern world. It is a magazine designed to give jihadists throughout the world the ideas necessary to successfully attack and defeat infidels. The magazine has no license over the ideas, and hands these ideas out to anyone who wants them. That is the power of the idea exchange, and the intent is for people to take those ideas and do something with them.
Now this is where my ideas come into the picture. John Robb continues to promote what today’s enemies of the world can and will do with this concept of open source warfare. But to me, I would like to present what today’s ‘good guys’ can do with open source warfare. Call it ‘open source counter-terrorism’, or whatever you want to call it–because that is the point, you can call it whatever you want to call it. lol All you have to remember is that this is a strategy of ‘mimicry’. (taking your enemy’s strategy, and adding something to it to give you the edge)
With that said, what would open source counter-terrorism look like? Simply stated, read Feral Jundi and that is open source counter-terrorism. My target audience is security and military professionals, as well as the public, and my message has always been that of countering today’s enemies with new and interesting strategies and ideas. From destroying the cartels, to counter-piracy off the coast of Somalia, to defeating the Taliban and Al Qaeda at their game. This blog is an open source warfare publication for those that care about the fight. This Inspire magazine is the enemy’s equivalent.
I would also classify other blogs and forums/message boards I follow as a form of open source counter-terrorism or open source warfare. We all locate the stories that would be interesting to our peers, we present them to the community, and we discuss. Folks come up with strategies and ideas in their brain about how to counter a specific threat, or what equipment to buy, or how to set up their weapon, etc. Hell, I originally learned about contracting by visiting a forum called Tactical Forums, and I would classify that as ‘open source contract job search’. lol Because in the beginning, there were no books or schools to teach you how to contract. You had to learn from numerous online sources and build off of other contractor’s strategies for the job search and working in the industry.
But what is missing in the whole open source counter-terrorism game is more of a focus on the public at large. To me, the jihadist fears a public that is armed with the knowledge necessary to defeat them. The jihadist, pirate, cartel, or whomever all depend on the idea that civilians do not have the mental or emotional fortitude to defeat them. That terrorism will always reign supreme. Pfffft. I would like to change that.
To be realistic though, I don’t expect grandma to pick up an M-240 and mow down terrorists. But I do think grandma can do things that can throw a serious wrench into the Usama or Zetas terror machine. Grandma can pick up a phone, she can identify scenarios that would be of concern, she can identify persons, she can film/tweet/text via smart phone all sorts of stuff that would be interesting to the sheep dogs. There are tons of things grandma can do within her power. She also has a brain, and can logically think out strategies and tactics, or provide a missing piece of information that no one else thought up. She has value and an empowered grandma can certainly be a counter to the empowered jihadist.
Another concept that was brought up on my Face Book page by some readers was developing games to help educate the public on how to fight these folks. Massive multiplayer games on Facebook, or spectacular video games like Modern Warfare are examples of the kind of games that get incredible reach. They also present scenarios for players to strategize and out think enemies. Just the kind of thing to fuel open source counter-terrorism. The TV show called Surviving Disaster is another example of empowering civilians to survive and even stop terrorism. Entertainment is an excellent way of getting the ideas out there.
On a side note, one other area of open source warfare that I keep introducing and hoping others will build off of is the concept of Letter of Marque and Reprisal. It is an old system of licensing that provided structure and a legal mechanism for the state and private industry partnership during times of war. I think it can be an effective system if given some modern upgrades.
The number one theme of open source counter-terrorism though is to promote the concept that counter-terror is not just for police or military. It is a concept that gets the civilian population involved with counter-terror, both directly and indirectly. Directly– meaning armed with knowledge to defeat these folks or disrupt their operations, and indirectly by discussing, developing and sharing new strategies and ideas, or building off of current strategies and ideas via blogs and forums, that can help police/military/public to defeat these enemies. A big hat tip to John Robb and his ideas, and to my readers over the years for fueling the great open source counter-terror game here on this blog. –Matt
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Glenn ReynoldsJohn Robb’s chilling brief on postmodern terrorism23 May 2007
Brave New War: The Next Stage of Terrorism and the End of Globalization, by John Robb
Last year, I wrote a book called An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Government, Big Media, and Other Goliaths. It was a celebration of how technology empowers the little guy, though I did spend some time discussing the darker sides of this development. John Robb’s Brave New War is in a way the mirror image of my argument: it devotes a lot of space to the dark side of the technological empowerment of individuals and small groups, and much less to potential upsides.
The dark side is certainly there. In the old days, you needed many people to commit significant mayhem—something like a Roman legion, or at least a century. Nowadays, one man with an AK-47 is probably a match for a hundred Roman legionaries, and modern explosives make matters even more asymmetrical. In the foreseeable future, Robb concludes, we may even see a situation where an individual can declare war on the world—and win. Or as science fiction writer Vernor Vinge put it in his recent book Rainbows End, set in 2025: “Nowadays Grand Terror technology was so cheap that cults and criminal gangs could acquire it . . . . In all innocence, the marvelous creativity of humankind continued to generate unintended consequences. There were a dozen research trends that could ultimately put world-killer weapons in the hands of anyone having a bad hair day.”
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Al Qaeda: New Strategy–Less Apocalypse, More Street Fighting
For the most part, I would have to agree with this article. Although what the authors are forgetting is that when these people have an idea in their brain, they will continue to attempt the operation over and over again. They could take another decade to attempt the attack if it failed the first time around, or even wait twenty or thirty years. Time is not a factor to these folks. So it is important to remember that yes, they might focus on the Mumbai style urban warfare, but the apocalyptic stuff like 9/11 will always be on their mind.
In essence, this urban warfare direction is the strategy ‘du jour’. It still causes havoc and it still makes the news. And if done right, the terrorist team could get plenty of press out of the operation.
As for the how, I simply point towards what these guys are doing in the war zones. War zones are the ultimate training grounds for what they want to do in peaceful urban populations, because they are able to refine methods or create new ones. They are able to learn how to assemble a one time use human weapon system, and the success rate of this weapon is dependent on how squared away the planners are. Planners can gain experience in the wars, and use that knowledge to great advantage for attacks against population centers that are not on a war footing. Soldiers and contractors in Afghanistan are armed and think about the defense 24/7. People in a city like Seattle might think about their next cup of coffee that day, and being armed or thinking about the defense or survival is the last thing on their minds.
The other aspect to remember is the ability of an attacker to melt away into society. A swarming attack takes seconds to kick off, and if the attackers are able to maneuver as close as possible (wearing police, military, or medical uniforms), they can be more effective. This is tough to spot in a war zone, and I speculate that most don’t care to notice these things in peaceful cities. Even if attackers are not wearing uniforms, they can still blend in really well.
What is also important to note is that an assaulter force might wear body armor so they can effectively fight into pockets of human concentration once the attack is on. So a defense in urban population centers must have weapons that can not only knock these guys down, but the guard should be able to shoot the head or pelvic area of the attacker in order to shut down that terrorist. If not, they will just get back up and continue the assault.
Being able to take the terrorist out at an appropriate distance will be important as well. If you shoot one of these guys at pistol range, and they detonate, it could potentially kill you and destroy the barriers in place, which would then allow the swarmers behind that terrorist to penetrate deeper. The defense should allow for adequate stand off between vehicle/people traffic and the guards, and it should be layered or spread out. One bomb should not be able to take out the entire guard force. This can be hard to achieve in war zones, and really hard to achieve in urban population centers that are not in war zones. None the less, these things have to be thought about and planned for.
Bottom line, a good urban defense needs preparation. Police, private security, and the public will be the only ones in the position to stop these types of attacks in the urban setting. Although realistically, it will be the public that will be the ones to initially identify the attack and potentially stop it. Police and private security cannot be everywhere at once. AQ and company knows this and they are depending on the idea that a country’s citizenry is not capable of thwarting their attack.
One thing governments can do to defeat them is to promote certain simplistic things that people can do in order to defeat a swarming suicide assaulter attack. It would take education via websites, public service announcements, posters, etc. to get the word out. Some ideas to promote is to get people using their smart phones. Tell them to take photos, to tweet, to chat, take pictures and video, but most importantly, just connect with authorities as soon as possible, and feed as much information to them as possible. Authorities would be wise to facilitate that connection any way possible via an Incident Command system that makes it one of their priorities.
Another idea is to tell folks to always plan escape routes out of any building they are in and to not bunch up. Remember, the suicide assaulter is looking for pockets of human concentration to shoot into or blow up. The more spread out people are, the better. So as people get over the initial shock of the attack, hopefully some leader types within that group will get on the ball and tell people to separate and escape as best they can. To not wait for law enforcement to save them, but to take matters into their own hands and get out in an organized and hopefully logical matter. Hopefully someone in the group will be armed or use something as a weapon to maybe take out a terrorist. It’s either stop them, get the hell out of there, or hand your life over to these animals–you make the call.
My opinion on the whole thing is that the government needs to put together an adequate program that can educate the local population on how they can help, and how they can defeat a Mumbai type attack. The government should also work more with entertainment shows that connect with the population. Spike TV’s Surviving Disaster was an excellent show, and they presented multiple scenarios that teach people exactly what they can do to protect self and defeat terrorists. To me, it is all about the message of ‘government needs your help’ and ‘police cannot be everywhere at once’. A population must get involved and they must be armed with the knowledge necessary to defeat this stuff. The police and security will always work on their job and continue to do what they can, but civilians must get in the game as well. After all, civilians are the target of these terrorists and they can either stand and fight, or hand over their lives to these heathens and give them the satisfaction and success they seek. –Matt
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Mumbai attacker with AK-47.
Al-Qaeda’s new strategy: Less apocalypse, more street fighting
By Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson
Sunday, October 10, 2010
The scene in Europe last week called to mind the heyday of the IRA in the 1970s or of Algerian terrorism in the 1990s: Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square were teeming with police, the Eiffel Tower was repeatedly evacuated, and everywhere, tourists were on edge. The threat, however, involved a newer brand of terrorist: The CIA and its European counterparts warned of an al-Qaeda plot to kill civilians in France, Germany and Britain, and alerted travelers, especially Americans, to be extra-vigilant.
Few operational details were released. But unlike many thwarted al-Qaeda operations of days gone by — such as the 2006 Heathrow plot in which several airliners bound from London to America were to be blown up at coordinated intervals — it was clear from news reports that the European plan called for less spectacular, smaller-scale attacks, perhaps using machine guns to strafe clusters of tourists near public landmarks.
Has al-Qaeda become dispirited? No.
Recent plots, including the Mumbai raid in November 2008, the Times Square car bomb attempt in May of this year and now the plot in Europe, show that al-Qaeda is not only operationally alive and well, but has transformed its post-Afghanistan tactical retreat into a formidable new strategy. In the early part of the last decade, al-Qaeda had no choice but to use conventional explosives and old-fashioned terrorist tactics to hit soft targets, the 2002 bombing of nightclubs in Bali being perhaps the best example. With its leadership under siege in Pakistan, it lacked the capacity to mount sophisticated and coordinated attacks that would match, let alone exceed, the innovation or shock value on display on Sept. 11, 2001, or even in the USS Cole operation the year before.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Industry Talk: EODT And Wackenhut/AGNA/G4S Respond To SASC Report
Boy, the sharks of the media really went to town on this story. Funny how the Jim Jones thing will probably turn this report into a footnote. lol
What I wanted to do is actually provide a little balance here and get the word out as to what the companies have to say. If you read most of the stories out about this thing, they are all pretty one sided. The report does detail some shady practices, but I agree with the companies below that the military knew what they were doing the whole time.
One of the pieces of evidence that the investigators could have relied upon to establish this is to go into the BDOC of these bases and look up all of these guards that were used for base protection. Because if any Afghan was allowed to come on to a FOB or whatever for security, more than likely the ID nazis were all over them. Everyone has to have ID.
The other missing component is the mountains of negative reviews from the military that showed their disgust with these companies? Where are these performance evaluations or surveys that showed poor service? Where is the reprimands from the military, if in fact they wanted these companies to stop doing what they were doing? Or like the companies have stated, the military knew what was going on and even recommend some of these folks to the companies?
Finally, just to play devil’s advocate here. Doesn’t COIN also state to win over the support of the local population? So when companies go into a specific area to set up shop, and they are directed to hire ‘Afghan First‘ and hire locally, then you can see how limited a company can be? Worse yet, if a company doesn’t use these locals, the locals get mad and the security situation gets worse because they are unemployed and look at the company as just a threat. It is like going into a town that is pro-union, and if you don’t hire union, you will face the wrath of the union. Try bringing in the ‘scabs’ in a warzone? lol
On the flip side, I am not going to necessarily condone what these companies did, but on the flip side, the military and the pentagon both should receive equal criticism in this matter. I agree with report about bringing in more auditors and CORS, but this is not new. I also agree that money should be used wisely in a war like this, and ensure that where that money goes does not fund the opposition. Commonsense stuff really, and Petraeus has already addressed this.
Now it is time to put action to words and get the job done. It takes leadership and a ‘trust but verify’ focus–as if you guys are spending your own money on this, and not just the tax payer’s money. I am still waiting to see this in the military and government, and I don’t think we need any more reports to make that point any more clear. Less talk, more action.
One more thing. EODT did a great job getting this press release out there the day the report came out. Wackenhut/AGNA/G4S has did a terrible job of getting the word out. I checked the G4S press releases and nothing. No one from that company has forwarded anything to me and I have yet to see a press release floating around. So basically I had to scrounge up a quote from an AP report. –Matt
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Statement of EOD Technology Regarding the Senate Armed Services Committee Report Dated Sept. 28, 2010
LENOIR CITY, TN (October 7, 2010) – EOD Technology, Inc. (EODT) has only had the opportunity to preliminarily review the Report issued by the Senate Arms Services Committee (SASC). EODT cooperated fully in the SASC investigation. It is our understanding that this Report, discusses a contract that EODT was performing in Afghanistan at the Adraskan National Training Center and more specifically, EODT’s utilizing and hiring Afghan nationals.
In response to these statements EODT would first make clear that its contract required EODT to utilize Afghan personnel and specifically those from the area surrounding the contract location. The local leaders which EODT sought out to assist in hiring personnel were persons made known to EODT by the U.S. military or were commonly known leaders within that area. In any event all leaders which EODT utilized were made known to the U.S. military at every stage of mobilization.
As for Afghan citizens hired by EODT, all names were provided to the appropriate person or persons designated by our contract in order to gain approval for the hire. However, above and beyond its contract requirements, EODT sought out representatives from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) operating in that area in order to provide names for screening and resulting feedback.
While the SASC Report may present certain criticisms of EODT’s hiring practices, EODT has never been advised by the U.S military that problems of this nature exist. However, just as EODT has cooperated fully with the SASC investigation, EODT stands ready to engage the U.S. military or other stakeholders about these issues in order to improve our internal processes and contract performance.
EODT was asked to perform the Adraskan contract after the prior contractor failed to mobilize. The dangerous region and work presented significant challenges which EODT believes it successfully overcame. EODT underwent a successful Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) audit for this contract in 2008 as well as earning subsequent positive past performance on this contract.
Link to press release here.
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Susan Pitcher, a spokeswoman for Wackenhut Services, ArmorGroup’s parent company, said the company only engaged workers from local villages upon the “recommendation and encouragement” of U.S. special operations troops.
Pitcher said that ArmorGroup stayed in “close contact” with the military personnel “to ensure that the company was constantly acting in harmony with, and in support of, U.S. military interests and desires.”
Link to article here.
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Senate report blasts Pentagon for handling of security contractors
By Charley Keyes
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
• Senate report: Failure to keep track of private security contractors puts troops at risk
• Sen. Carl Levin: “We must shut off the spigot of U.S. dollars” to Afghan warlords
• Committee staff: 125 security contracts cost the U.S. more than $100 million
• Report cites nonexistent training, violent incidents, warlord affiliations