Leapfrogging: Terrorists and State Actors

by Mohammad Naved Ferdaus Iqbal

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The paper attempts to establish that there is an inadvertent exchange of intelligence and counterintelligence (CI) capabilities between terrorist groups and national intelligence as both seek to learn from each other’s successes and failures and adapt accordingly. While national security and intelligence pose as an existential threat for terrorist groups, these violent non-state actors (VNAs) tend to employ high regards for intelligence and CI and, actively pursue a faster pace of learning and adapting to their volatile operating environment. The groups’ competitive edge in asymmetric warfare with state actors have also been a catalyst in altering the intelligence and CI environment, particularly the modus operandi (MO) of national intelligence. The alterations, however, are reciprocal, suggesting leapfrogging between VNAs and state actors. When terrorist groups develop themselves as learning organizations, the ramifications of changes that become evident in their operating environment get quickly incorporated into their MO as well. This expanding intelligence and CI capabilities of terrorist groups, therefore, surface as a considerable threat as opposed to hostile states actors. In order to establish that there is an inadvertent exchange of intelligence and counterintelligence capabilities between terrorist groups and national intelligence, the paper is, organized to lay out how VNAs learn to adapt from past activities; gauge where intelligence and CI activities of VNAs are similar and contrary to those of national intelligence; probe how intelligence and CI activities of VNAs and national intelligence have caused alterations in each other’s intelligence and CI capabilities; and finally, evaluate the magnitude of threat posed by VNAs as opposed to hostile states actors with a national intelligence apparatus.

Examples of how a VNA develops as a learning organization is peppered through out the history of Al Qaeda (AQ) operations. In fact, Joe Ilardi characterizes AQ as a learning organization. AQ has demonstrated that it learns from the experiences of others, regardless of their political or religious orientation.[i] Retired Lieutenant General J.T. Scott, former head of the US Army Special Operations Command also corroborates AQ’s ability to adapt and to learn:

“…They learn from their successes and failures, as well as ours. Each time, we’ve prepared to defend ourselves against his last operation, and each time he’s discovered a new, asymmetric way to get at us”[ii]

Learning from the past is strongly evident in Islamist VNAs’ military doctrine, reflecting an evolutionary process that can prolong the survival of the movement and improve its efficiency. In addition to lessons delivered by historic Islamist figures, documents on the experiences of past VNA operatives continue to appear on forums of Islamist VNAs. Among the most well known of these is “Call of the Global Islamic Resistance – Guide to the Jihad Way”[iii]. Similar studies have emerged, which catalog the lessons learned from US operations in Afghanistan and how that knowledge might be applied by VNAs in the Iraq insurgency. Studying the methods of their enemies not only teaches the VNAs the type of countermeasures they need to deploy, but also provides experiences considered worth emulating. For example, AQ’s “The Declaration of Jihad”[iv] points out that Israel’s Mossad was able to defeat a Palestinian plan to assassinate the-then premier Golda Meir. This was intended to demonstrate the importance of observation and analysis in identifying and neutralizing threats.[v] Bruce Hoffman adds another element to the characteristics of AQ’s adaptive learning style. He describes the organization as remarkably nimble.[vi] Compared to AQ’s ability to quickly adapt, state actors on the other hand, adapt more slowly.[vii] VNAs tend to learn and adapt quickly because it is crucial for their survival whereas state actors muddle along because intelligence does not protect against existential threats.[viii]

Studies of the MO of other VNAs including Provincial Irish Republican Army (PIRA), Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Hezbollah, Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) have also shown evidences of formalized intelligence practices that emphasized on learning from successes and failures. These VNAs have been known to incorporate lessons learned from both past intelligence activities and past attacks into training and future planning.[ix] The PIRA, for example, acquired a comprehensive understanding of the scale and nature of the surveillance activities and methodologies employed against it by the British security forces. Through exposure to the negative effects of this surveillance, the PIRA was able to modify many aspects of its operations and minimize the impact of security force surveillance and other intelligence collection methods. The construction of specific CI measures, along with other tactical adjustments reduced the uncertainty and risk involved in PIRA’s operations.[x] These measures were so successful that by the early 1900s, it was revealed, reportedly by Sir John Wilsey, the Army’s General Officer Commanding in Northern Ireland that “the PIRA is better equipped, better resourced, better led, bolder and more secure against our penetration than at any time before.”[xi] One of the many lessons learned PIRA had used to its advantage, especially in CI, is training PIRA volunteers to survive through interrogations. As the British security forces expanded their intelligence holdings, their effectiveness in extracting information during interrogation also improved, panicking many volunteers into confessions. The widespread use of techniques involving the use of torture and other highly controversial methods are added to the effectiveness of interrogation as an intelligence-gathering tool. The PIRA thus came to perceive interrogation as a major threat. In 1989, a member of the organization’s internal security unit commented, “the IRA leadership has learned that our army has one weakness – the interrogation of our members by the RUC”. The lesson learned was soon reflected in the PIRA doctrine, called the Green Book, which detailed description of the conditions, the volunteer was likely to encounter once taken into custody. This included descriptions of the interrogation techniques, along with step-by-step explanation of the processes involved in preparing the volunteer for questioning. By anticipating and describing the circumstances likely to be encountered, the volunteer could be expected to adopt the necessary defence. As the Green book observed, “the best defence in anti-interrogation techniques is to understand the techniques as practiced by the police forces”, also understood was, that being forewarned in this way would provide the volunteers the confidence needed to resist the pressure of interrogation.[xii]

As VNAs improve their MO through an adaptive learning style, they tend to absorb certain characteristics in their intelligence and CI doctrines and activities that show stark resemblances with those of national intelligence. For example, AQ’s inherent recognition of intelligence is explicit in its “Declaration of Jihad against the country’s tyrants”, which defines intelligence as the covert search for and examination of the enemy’s news and information for the purpose of using them when a plan is devised”. [xiii] The inherent message is similar to how intelligence is defined in the Dictionary of United States Military Terms for Joint Usage, which defines intelligence as “the product resulting from the collection, evaluation, analysis, integration, and interpretation of all available information which concerns one or more aspects of foreign nations or of areas of operation and which is immediately or potentially significant to planning.”[xiv]Both the definitions suggest common elements including collection, examination or analysis of information for the purpose of planning. Analogous to the purpose for which national intelligence collects intelligence, i.e., to help policy decisions, the Encyclopedia of Afghan Jihad also corroborates AQ’s understanding of intelligence in relation to organization and policy.[xv]

VNA’s similarity to national intelligence has also been observed in Columbia’s FARC. FARC’s intelligence apparatus is known to resemble the government’s intelligence organization, doctrine and functions. FARC has long emphasized the acquisition of Columbian military manuals. Also, its use of the term Essential Elements of Information (EEI) in its doctrines is borrowed from the US military intelligence. Quite like a national intelligence set up, FARC’s intelligence section conducts offensive intelligence activities including clandestine collection, analyses and operational planning. The CI section has security responsibilities including verification of the physical security of bases and documents, interrogation of prisoners and controlling the organization’s cryptographic equipment. The CI section also provides CI related collection requirements to the intelligence section. FARC’s documents also display a fairly accurate understanding of intelligence’s analytical tradecraft. They emphasize checking the credibility of the source of information and tell intelligence personnel to assign a reliability score to raw and finished products. They also stress the need for addressing consumers’ intelligence needs.[xvi]

Similarities in the sophistication of national intelligence apparatus in terms of organizational structure, operational and strategic planning and training are also observed in the LTTE organization. The LTTE had a sophisticated, professional intelligence division, with a distinct division of roles and responsibilities including collection, analysis, operations planning and execution. The group supported independent intelligence units tasked from the high- command with generating both tactical and strategic intelligence to support operations and long-term planning and assessment. It retained a formally trained cadre of intelligence operatives, whose only responsibility was long-term intelligence collection and analysis of potential and real targets. LTTE terrorists then used table-top models and maps constructed by the intelligence department for training purposes. They varied their intelligence approach on the basis of land versus marine targets, both of which the LTTE were equally comfortable in engaging.[xvii]

Studies of VNAs and national intelligence have also brought to light some common features as well as significant differences between these actors. The contention that VNAs use intelligence and undertake surveillance and reconnaissance to support their intelligence missions is based on reports of its use in actual attack planning alongside its existence in their training materials and doctrines.[xviii] Like state actors, VNAs need intelligence, but they organize their intelligence activities in different ways than do national intelligence. As a result, intelligence produces different consequences for VNAs. The available literature on the intelligence operations of VNAs indicates that they primarily employ intelligence to plan terrorist attacks and to protect themselves from penetration and attack by government forces. This means that intelligence mainly supports their field commanders, not strategically important national political leaders as would be the case with national intelligence. As a result, VNAs’ strategic intelligence analysis is often weak relative to that of national intelligence. The closest government analogy to VNAs’ intelligence activities is the paramilitary operations of state intelligence services, which, like VNAs, typically conduct offensive operations against materially stronger enemies using skill, stealth, surprise and operational security. Unlike national intelligence, the effectiveness of CI determines the survival of VNAs. CI is also the means by which VNAs preserve the faith of their members by ruthlessly enforcing ideological discipline. While the use of all source intelligence collection is prevalent with national intelligence and also VNAs, the latter’s dependence has largely been on HUMINT. Also, where most national intelligence looks at covert action as a secondary mission, VNAs consider covert action as a core mission as many of their operations remain clandestine.[xix]

The leapfrogging race between VNAs and national intelligence has pushed several alterations in the intelligence and CI environment. For example, the increasing intelligence capabilities of FARC have resulted in regular reforms in the Columbian government’s intelligence services.[xx] Other examples of reforms and subsequent improvements in national intelligence are also observed in the history of the British security force’s battle against PIRA. By the early 1970s, the shortcoming of the British intelligence and the increase in PIRA’s killings prompted a rapid escalation in the security force’s intelligence gathering capabilities.[xxi] As a result, the systematic use of three collection methods in particular, informers and agents; surveillance; and interrogation, is emphasized and served as the framework for these improved intelligence efforts. These methods represented the most serious threat to PIRA’s capacity to function. The British frustration with the lack of quality intelligence on the PIRA also manifested itself with the introduction of a series of extra-legal measures including internment without trial and later, additional measures under the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1974. These measures provided a legal mechanism through which the security forces could replenish their intelligence holdings and keep abreast of the PIRA’s rapidly expanding size, lethality and professionalism. Internment provided the security forces the means by which to detain and interrogate PIRA suspects in the hope of acquiring damaging intelligence.[xxii] The Parker Committee, which was established to investigate security force’s interrogation methods, confirmed the success of these methods. The committee revealed that, as a direct result of two operations conducted by the security forces shortly after the introduction of internment, tremendous successes were achieved.[xxiii]

A significant alteration in the intelligence environment since the 9/11 terrorist attack is national intelligences’ liaison with foreign services. Prior to 9/11, the US has remained staunch allies with the Commonwealth nations including UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Post 9/11, the US embraced a host of other foreign intelligence services to combat global terrorism.[xxiv] These new relationships include even adversarial countries such as Syria.[xxv] While the US has vast technical collection platforms at its disposal, the global war on terrorism demands human intelligence expertise in specific languages and cultures for which the new alliance partners are in some cases better suited.[xxvi] But these alterations did not come without risks. Firstly, foreign intelligence partners may find lower security thresholds tolerable and feel no need to exercise high CI standards or operational integrity. In fact, little doubt remains that VNAs have penetrated foreign governments of American allies. In 2006, AQ claimed that it had infiltrated the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).[xxvii] Secondly, many of these new or re-established liaisons may not necessarily be penetrated by VNAs, yet parochial interests within the services themselves may collude with groups hostile to the US. Elements of the Pakistani Directorate for Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) for instance, continue to retain close ties to extremists in Afghanistan.[xxviii] Alterations in the US federal government have also been a result of the 9/11 terrorist attacks such as the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and shifting priorities within the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other federal law enforcement agencies. Preventing future acts of terrorism and preparing for massive response operations became a national priority overnight for law enforcements at all levels.[xxix]

A study conducted by the Council of State Governments and Eastern Kentucky University in 2005 provides strong evidences of alterations in state law enforcement including counterterrorism units in the US as a result of terrorism perpetrated by VNAs. Post 9/11, roughly 75 per cent of state agencies are to a great extent involved in terrorism related intelligence gathering, analyses and dissemination. More than 50 per cent of state agencies reported similar involvement in homeland security assessments of critical infrastructure, providing protection for the infrastructure and emergency response to terrorism related incidents. Compared to pre 9/11, more than 60 per cent of state agencies have reported that local agency requests have significantly increased in the areas of assistance including emergency response, special weapons and tactics team (SWAT), bomb squads, aviation and marine assets and forensic science laboratories. As the private sector in the US owns roughly 85 per cent of the nation’s critical infrastructure, more than 60 per cent of state police agencies have reported an increase in their interactions with private companies concerning facility security and workers’ background checks. The study has also indicated that more than 75 per cent of state agencies reported that their assignment of personnel to federal task forces such as the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) has increased considerably since 9/11. A large percentage of state agencies have confirmed that their agencies’ involvement in immigration related investigations and enforcement activities have increased. VNAs causing shifting priorities in the national security and intelligence have also led to decreased federal support in traditional criminal investigations such as bank robberies and drug investigations.[xxx]

With the increasing capabilities of VNAs, state and local law enforcement agencies are faced with increasing needs for new intelligence related analysts, investigators, and a variety of analytical tools to support them in mining data and translating them into usable intelligence. Also, the Homeland Security is requiring an unprecedented level of cooperation among different security disciplines. For example, it is not uncommon today to have one agency or discipline cross-place or task-organize its personnel with others. New homeland security offices and planning committees are typically comprised of representatives from the agriculture, emergency medical care, emergency management, fire service, law enforcement, military, public health and public utilities sectors. States are also pursuing new fusion centers to help them address their intelligence needs as the threats from VNAs grow. The increasing formidability of VNAs has led to the development of fusion centers in the US such as Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center (ACTIC), Upstate New York Regional Intelligence Center (UNYRIC) and Washington State Joint Analytical Center (WAJAC). The resulting actions of VNAs in the intelligence and CI environment have put the focus on the centralization of intelligence sharing and analysis at the state level, through one physical center or network of facilities, which provides a means to gather and analyze disparate networks of information more effectively and efficiently.[xxxi]

The intelligence and CI capabilities of VNAs suggest that over the years, the groups have learned from successful and failed operations, not only of themselves but also of their enemies in the public sphere. This poses even a greater emphasis for national intelligence to continue to seek excellence in their own intelligence and CI capabilities if they must successfully combat these formidable enemies. But VNAs are not the only adversaries that states have to counter. Nation states are often subjected to threats from other adversarial states with national intelligence apparatus. It is imperative, therefore, to understand the formidability of VNAs relative to adversarial states. For example, penetration by both VNAs and hostile state actors generally threaten US national security by revealing America’s capabilities, intentions and vulnerabilities. Both VNAs and hostile state actors may use this intelligence to their mutual advantage. A VNA may act on intelligence to plot its next bombing campaign or to disrupt military operations against its cells. For hostile state actors, however, the utility of harvested intelligence is dramatically increased because foreign governments are more inclined to have the resources at their disposal to best exploit any new information. Adversary states can build quieter submarines and more effective collection platforms or develop better-informed strategies by exploiting the intelligence they have pilfered from the US government. Thus hostile state actors have significantly broader targeting requirements across economic, military, scientific and political spheres. Smaller, less funded VNAs may share some of the same targeting requirements with their larger counterparts, particularly with regards to policy and military matters, but will most likely be concerned with information as it pertains to counterterrorism, counternarcotic, classified policy decisions, and military objectives.[xxxii]

Globalization and advances in information technology have made the exfiltration of classified information easier, as well as difficult to detect for both VNAs and hostile state actors. Also, the greater frequency of global travel and international contacts across industries has led to the increased opportunity for the transfer of classified information to foreign entities.[xxxiii] VNAs and hostile state actors are equally likely to exploit the latest technology to steal state secrets. However, given their sizable financial resources, hostile state actors are better at developing the cutting edge information technology to gather and transmit data. VNAs will, instead, be most likely limited to the best “off-the-shelf” commercial technology available, usually of a lower caliber than the tools at the disposal of the state actors.[xxxiv]

In summation of the analyses in this paper, what emerges is that VNAs have developed considerable sophistication in their MO via an adaptive learning style. While they may not pose as an existential threat to many western governments compared to some hostile state actors, they have, however, subjected significant alterations in how intelligence and CI are conducted in the national intelligence settings. Those alterations in turn have also fed back to VNAs’ continued improvements in intelligence and CI capabilities, resulting in a leapfrogging race between themselves and the national intelligence. An inadvertent exchange of intelligence and CI capabilities between VNAs and national intelligence thus becomes challenging to impede from a national intelligence perspective. The subject therefore calls for a greater impetus on building excellence in intelligence and CI of state actors and a reinforced need for more effective policy prescriptions to successfully battle these formidable enemies.