Terrorism and Counterintelligence: How Terrorist Groups Elude Detection

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Terrorism and Counterintelligence: How Terrorist Groups Elude Detection By Blake W. Mobley Combating terrorism has been the focal point of US policy following that fateful day on 11 September 2001. Many in both the academic and professional worlds often fail to realize the most prominent terrorist groups in media headlines are not backwoods ad hoc organizations. They are not the groups of disturbed children or adults attempting to find their place in society as some analysts tend to portray. Many of these organizations are, in fact, quite sophisticated, well-organized groups that control their members via opportunities for improved living standards and an agenda in line with the population's values at the time. Sophisticated organizations, both past and present, such as al Qaeda, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), Egyptian Islamic Group (IG), and Fatah all use a variety of techniques described throughout this book to evade their adversaries' most effective counterintelligence methods, and it is these four groups the case studies represent. Terrorism and Counterintelligence: How Terrorist Groups Elude Detection examines the intricate webs that make a terrorist group successful, and begins its review by defining the words "terrorism" and "counterintelligence." Academics and other professionals often disagree on the basic definitions of these broad and manipulative terms, which in turn cause problems in the thorough analysis and interpretation of the reasoning behind a group's actions. In a society with a plethora of definitions of terrorism and counterintelligence, the author does an exceptional job of defining these terms in line with the key underlining message of this book, which is to scrutinize the structure of these organizations and attempt to understand how they function from the inside out. The counterintelligence techniques used throughout the case studies include basic denial, adaptive denial, and covert manipulation. Basic denial includes training members of the group in basic counterintelligence techniques such as limited information of the telephone and internet networks and maintaining a low profile. Adaptive denial is adjusting the group's counterintelligence techniques to combat an adversary's intelligence methods; lastly, covert manipulation, uses double agents and false defectors to provide false information to the adversary. All these tactics prove useful and both the adversary and the terrorist group must create new forms of intelligence and counterintelligence techniques to combat older tactics. This book does not discuss specific terrorist plots or provide the reader with dramatic stories; it is rather a book with an in-depth focus on the inner workings of how terrorist cells relay information and the degree to which they keep their most sensitive information secret. …