I know what I know…

Accusations of an ‘intelligence failure’ often follow terrorist attacks such as the tragedy in Paris last week, it’s important to remember that intelligence has a finite value.

As often seems to happen in the wake of a terrorist attack such as the tragedy in Paris last week, questions are soon asked about what the security services knew in the run up and if the attack could have been prevented.

It’s often the case that where there was prior information held about the participants or the plot, the first of these questions is ‘Could the attack have been prevented?’

Debriefing in the aftermath is always an important part of the response as identifying shortcomings may help prevent a future attack, when intelligence is considered though there needs to be an understanding of its value to help appreciate ‘intelligence failings’ in context.

It’d be a mistake to think that intelligence represents what is ‘known’ – intelligence existing suggesting a person has links to terrorism or giving details of a plot does not amount to knowledge, it really only serves as a suggestion.

We grade intelligence on source and reliability, both very subjective and hard to judge with any degree of accuracy. Intelligence helps paint a picture, how accurate that picture is and what may be missed is difficult to say.

Information can be provided maliciously, it can also be presented in great volumes meaning decisions have to be made about how to prioritise and respond to a variety of competing concerns that incoming intelligence may alert security forces to.

This ‘noise’ means security services may have had information about dozens of potential plots, have intelligence on hundreds of potential terrorists, but without a specific reason for doing so will struggle to justify further investigative action.

There’s been talk recently about new legislation to give us more powers to collect communications data, the value of these powers would likely be that it’d help us to better judge where to focus our resources by helping us build a clearer picture.

The powers are controversial though the demand tight scrutiny – whatever their final form they are likely to represent an extension of our powers to access private communications hence the critical term ‘Snooper’s Charter’ used to describe them.

What it is important to remember is that whilst good intelligence is needed in the fight against terrorism, its value is finite, not absolute.

Even were intelligence budgets to be expanded tenfold and new ‘Big Brother’ legislation introduced to all but erase personal privacy, there would still be terrorist plots that would succeed.

The question is, how much more effective can our intelligence capabilities realistically be made and might we pass a threshold where we end up restricting civil liberties in pursuit of an efficiency that cannot be achieved?

P.S. The report published by Parliament on the intelligence surrounding the death of Drummer Rigby is a particularly interesting insight into how intelligence is used and the problems that face the intelligence services, it’s definitely worth a read if you’d like to know more about the subject.

Night terror…

Mention ‘terrorism’ and images such as this may come to mind. What does ‘terrorism’ mean though and do definitions alter our response to the threats? (Image from TheMachineStops)

Following the events over the weekend involving an explosive device igniting at Walsall’s Aisha mosque, there’s been some discussion on the internet as to how the incident ought to be classified.

At current time, it’s been looked at under the term ‘hate crime’.

Hatred is an aggravating factor, according to the definition that the CPS use it implies amongst other things that the offence involved ‘hostility based on the victim’s membership (or presumed membership) of a racial or religious group’.

Rather than a stand alone offence, a suggestion that hatred was the motivation behind a crime makes that crime much more serious and means that tougher guidelines are followed by the CPS when they come to consider sentencing.

Due to the circumstances of the Rutter Street incident, officers from our Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU) have also joined the investigation and will be lending their considerable expertise to help identify offenders.

As their name implies, CTU tend to focus on terrorism hence there is a suggestion that the incident could be considered against the definition of terrorism and classified accordingly.

This is where things get very tricky as when it comes to terrorism, how exactly do we define the term and what does it mean to most people?

I think that the idea many people hold of what ‘terrorism’ looks like is well summed up by the results thrown up by a Google image search on the term.

The images returned are of 9/11, George Bush, Osama Bin Laden, AK-47s and troubling chaps in balaclavas. Islam features heavily.

Now do these images really help define terrorism as it should be best understood or are they missing something? Where are the pictures of Anders Behring Breivik, Timothy McVeigh and others who don’t quite fit the mould suggested by the search results?

In terms of a generally accepted definition of the term ‘terrorism’, it’s a term that’s quite literally fought over. ‘Freedom fighter’ or ‘terrorist’ can be interchangeable, depending on whose side you’re on.

One academic study counted upwards of one hundred different definitions of the term ‘terrorism’ with the only common theme running through the definitions being the use or threat of violence.

Chamber’s Dictionary defines terrorism as ‘the systematic and organised use of violence and intimidation to force a government or community to act in a certain way or accept certain demands‘.

This is a general definition though and gives only a flavour of what ‘terrorism’ may imply. I think a more useful definition comes from law rather than literature.

Here again, each country’s legislation defines terrorism differently meaning that understanding who the enemy is of the ‘global war on terrorism’ is far from easy as variations in definitions imply variations in who ends up a ‘terrorist’.

In the UK our definition of terrorism comes from S.1 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

As a piece of legislation, the Terrorism Act is wide-ranging covering a number of terrorism related offences including fund-raising and training.

The definition of ‘terrorism’ itself is similarly encompassing, allowing for an array of activities to be considered under the Act.

S. 1 identifies ‘terrorism’ as the ‘use or threat of action’ designed to influence the government or to intimidate the public with that use or threat made for the purpose of ‘advancing a political, religious, racial, or ideological cause’.

‘Action’ means serious violence against a person, serious damage to property, endangering a person’s life, creating a serious risk to public health or safety and/or interfering or disrupting an electronic system.

Aside stating that ‘action’ to have occurred outside the UK will still be classified as terrorism, S. 1 also adds that if the action involved the use of firearms or explosives then it will be classified as terrorism whether or not there was a desire to influence the government or to intimidate the public.

So this is what we mean by ‘terrorism’ in terms of UK law and as it’s this definition that’ll be applied by security services during investigations and by the courts prosecuting, it’s perhaps the most relevant.

As mentioned, it’s a broad definition likely to cover much more than the stereotypical collections of suicide bombers and extremists that ‘terrorism’ may bring to mind.

Recognising that terrorism is a broad topic is important as by focusing on more traditional images of what a terrorist is expected to look like, a risk is run that chances to confront other people and groups posing an equal risk will be missed.

As the British born bombers responsible for the 7/7 London bombings illustrated, terrorists won’t all be from the Middle East and with varying motivations behind attacks in Oklahoma City in 1995, Norway in 2011 and Boston this year, religion shouldn’t be seen as the prime motivation for acts of terrorism.

Being a broad subject does not imply though that there aren’t common themes running through our response to terrorism – themes that apply no matter which of the hundred or so definitions you’re applying.

The first and foremost would be that information on anything terrorism related is shared at the earliest opportunity.

More than any other area of policing, the work of CTU is intelligence-led and their ability to prevent terrorist plots is largely dependant on the quality of intelligence that they have to work on.

Supplying information, no matter how trivial, is one of the best ways you can contribute to the fight against terrorism and it’s easy to do so too – just pick up the phone and dial 0800 789 321 to speak to the Anti-Terrorist Hotline.

Hand in hand with this goes the necessity to approach issues surrounding terrorism in a mature, sensitive way and not get caught up in the rhetoric spat out by certain groups wanting to spin perception to their own ends.

Terrorism is by no means an exclusively Muslim issue and should someone from an Islamic background have been responsible for an act of terrorism then they are likely no more representative of Muslims in general than are the those responsible for killing abortion doctors in the States representative of Christians.

These points considered, no matter how the incident at the Aisha mosque is ultimately defined, the response from the public ought not be much different.

We’ll need strong community cohesion, trust-based relationships between public and the police and a mature appreciation of the issues surrounding both hate and terrorism.

From my own experience of working with the people living around the area of the Aisha mosque and the general impression of the communities across the West Midlands and further afield, I’ve every confidence the public response will be an assuring one.

There was a time when you let me know, what’s really going on below…

After recently attending some thrillingly named ‘extreme threat’ training during which we were given a presentation by an officer from our Counter Terrorism Unit, I thought I’d use this post to stress how important the sharing of information is when it comes to combating the threat posed by terrorist activity in the West Midlands.

First of all, yes, we have called our anti-terrorism team ‘CTU’. Yes, this is the same name as the organisation that Jack Bauer belongs to in the show ’24’ and yes, although the officer we spoke to wouldn’t be drawn on the matter I’ve no doubt that his work is just as exciting as it looks on the TV. He didn’t perform any combat rolls during the presentation itself but did interrupt his PowerPoint a couple of times with interjections of “upload the schematics to my PDA!” and “damit, that’s not the right play!!”. Exciting stuff…

Anyway, one of the main drives of the presentation was how useful it is to CTU to have a good source of reliable information to work on. Whilst they doubtlessly have their own top secret intelligence gathering methods, these are supplemented by officers, other agencies and, most importantly, the public supporting them and contacting them when something potentially suspicious comes to their attention.

To this end the Anti-Terrorist Hotline (0800 789 321) was established with specially trained counter-terrorism officers manning the phones around the clock ready to speak to people who want to report an issue and potentially prevent an attack. The officer we spoke to stressed that often a detail may appear insignificant alone, but when viewed as part of a bigger picture may well represent the last piece of the jigsaw.

What is ‘suspicious’ then? Well, I would say that ultimately it is the trained staff who will make that call but in the past useful leads have been obtained from people phoning to report persons taking undue note of security systems at shopping centres, large amounts of chemical containers left in rubbish bins and unusual gatherings of people.

Of course it’s not only counter-terrorism efforts that benefit from publicly generated intelligence and we’ll always appreciate you contacting us to report suspicious or criminal activity. Some of the most successful drugs warrants I’ve been involved with have come about due to other residents suggesting illegitimate activity was taking place and ultimately these have led to convictions in court. You can talk directly to an officer, phone us up or go through Crimestoppers with intelligence and you may even receive an award for doing so.

Ultimately it’s in everybody’s interest and is a shared responsibility to tackle terrorism and crime in general. We’ve got officers, like ‘Jack’, working around the clock but as hard as they work without good intelligence to work on their effectiveness is limited, so if you see something suspicious, odd or unusual, please make the call. You never know what you might prevent by doing so…