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| Investigators expand search in U.S. for terrorist operatives |
| 2002-07-12 |
| American citizens may be among those serving as behind-the-scenes advisers to al-Qaida cells operating in the United States. Some of the suspected advisers are believed to be immersed in American life and able to financially direct an attack without directly participating in it. Some may be U.S. citizens. They're known as "traitors," a term which has largely fallen out of use except in political invective... Al-Qaida manuals recovered in Afghanistan suggest that terror operations have a "senior adviser or wise man" who does not take part in attacks. They're called "controllers." It's a technical term for the "Brains of the Outfit," as opposed to "cannon fodder," which is the guys who actually do the bleeding and exploding... Some intelligence officials estimate that there may be as many as 5,000 people in the United States with some sort of connection to al-Qaida. That number, larger than other estimates, includes all those in the "realm of suspicion" and those who may know of terrorist activities but not participate in them. The number of hard-core al-Qaida members in the United States who might actually do harm to Americans is in the low hundreds or even less. That sounds like a ballpark estimate, and I suspect their are either fewer in the support network or more in the cannon fodder end of things — the ratios don't seem right. Behind the actual cannon fodder — usually organized in cells of three to ten — is a network of planning and decision-making controllers, called a "council" or shura. Usually, each controller runs several cells — collectively known as a fiah. The usual means of coordinating is by courier. Kind of like the mafia or professional intel networks, the guy at the front end may not even know who his controller is; disposing of the courier is all it takes to insulate the Important Guy. A sophisticated network like al-Qaeda or Hezbollah will also have specialized cells that do nothing but finance, for instance, or research, or documents, or provide transportation. And don't forget the ever-popular "Engineers." There might be a half dozen of these type cells to a single cannon fodder cell, all provided with as much plausible deniability as can be arranged, while the controller coordinates their efforts toward the strike that's going to "burn" the cannon fodder. Once the burn's complete, if everything goes right, they can get some more strong backs and weak minds for a new cannon fodder cell and still have the support mechanism in place... While law enforcement looks broadly for terrorists, some FBI agents are working closely with Treasury agents to conduct a more specialized search for U.S. residents who might be working in an advisory capacity. As part of the effort, federal investigators are conducting extensive checks into the backgrounds of longtime citizens who fall under suspicion, looking for operatives who may not have anything unusual in their immediate histories. This approach is going to cause howls from civil libertarians who demand we commit national suicide to protect the privacy of the members of these networks. The controllers, and their controllers and all the fifth columnists they can round up, are going to be discreetly helping this process along as much as they can without calling attention to themselves. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |