This Is Not How You Fight Terrorism
Intelligence hitches, lack of coordination, legal restrictions and more have allowed the terrorists to operate under the noses of the French authorities
01.11.15, 23:14
Ynet News
As more and more information emerges about the terrorist attacks in Paris, so does extent of the deep failure of the French authorities.
The first failure is that of the central intelligence branches: DGSE – the French version of the CIA or Mossad, and the DCRI - the equivalent of the FBI or Shin Bet, who were supposed keep track of the suspects and thwart their plot.
A senior French official told me that in recent days investigators have been trying to piece together the terrorists' correspondence – emails, Facebook activity and phone calls. They have also confiscated the computers in their homes and turned to the cellular companies. "It is likely that they used all of these to plan the operation," the official said.
This further illustrates the scope of the failure, as people with backgrounds of the sort possessed by Amedy Coulibaly, who carried out the attack at the kosher supermarket, should appear on every blacklist.
The 32-year-old Coulibaly, the son of immigrants from Senegal, began as an ordinary criminal and had served time for robbery and drug offenses. It was in prison that he met Cherif Kouachi, one of the perpetrators of the massacre at the Charlie Hebdo newspaper. After converting to Islam, he joined the Buttes-Chaumont network, which sent young French Muslims to fight the Americans in Iraq. The Kouachi brothers were members of the same network.
In 2010 Coulibaly and his wife Hayat Boumediene visited "terrorist guru" Jamaal Begal, an al-Qaeda terrorist who has spent years under house arrest in southern France (but not in jail). There they received training in firearms, and perhaps even planned to carry out a major attack in France.
In the same year Coulibaly was arrested on suspicion of being behind an attempt to break terrorist Smain Ait Ali from prison. In a search of Coulibaly's home, authorities found ammunition for a Kalashnikov rifle, and he was sent to jail. The Kouachi brothers were also arrested over their connection with the plot, but were released due to lack of evidence. Once Coulibaly was released, over a year ago, he and his girlfriend disappeared off the radar of the security agencies. Until last Thursday.
At the end of the week France launched an extensive manhunt for Boumedienne. Intelligence agencies initially believed that she had carried out the supermarket attack along with her husband, but had managed to escape under cover of the commotion. But on Saturday night, police sources were quoted as saying that she had already left France on January 2, days before the terrorist attacks. According to the intelligence, which is based on security cameras at the airport, Boumedienne boarded a flight to Spain and from there travelled to Turkey. Last Thursday, she apparently crossed the border into Syria.
This leads us to the second major failure: international coordination in the war on terror. After the September 11 attacks, many countries have changed their preparations in the event of attacks. This is especially the case in the United States, where a real revolution took place, with an emphasis on sharing information between the intelligence agencies. This "intelligence bath," as they call it in Military Intelligence (or "intelligence pool" in the vernacular of the Mossad), facilitates the compilation of a list of suspects who are denied entry into the United States. One of the Kouachi brothers appeared on this list.
The next step was to create an "intelligence bath" at the international level. But efforts never came to fruition. Countries sealed their borders better, with biometric systems, sophisticated computers and in-country coordination, but failed to reach cooperation on a global level. The US could prevent a terrorist from entering its territory, but France failed to use this information to keep track of him. Different information systems, different languages, different intelligence terms and many more variables, along with the desire of each country to retain its secrets, were spokes in the wheels of cooperation. An attempt to create a unified data bank for all EU countries is only in the developmental stage and far from completed.
The problems are not merely technical; some are down to legal gaps, or social and cultural differences between countries. What is permissible for American intelligence (now a little less so, due to Edward Snowden's revelations), including a violation of the rights of the individual, is strictly prohibited in France. And it is not only in France: Imagine that the German BND agency receives information about an al-Qaeda activist who grew up in Germany and is now in Yemen. A German official passes this information to the Americans, who use it to send an unmanned aircraft to eliminate him. For the Americans, the action is justified, but to the Germans it is a serious offense that could lead to jail time for the person who passed on the information. This is not how you fight terrorism.
Difficult questions
French intelligence knew that the Kouachi brothers were part of a terrorist network and that Cherif Kouachi had trained with al-Qaeda in Yemen. Why were they on the loose?
The two terrorist cells were acquainted and most likely were in coordination. How did the intelligence services fail to uncover the plot to carry out a double attack?
Who financed the terrorist attacks and who provided the terrorists with their multiple weapons - automatic machineguns, ammunition, explosives and bulletproof vests?
How were the terrorists able to make a mockery of tens of thousands of police for more than two days, until they were eliminated after 54 hours?
01.11.15, 23:14
Ynet News
As more and more information emerges about the terrorist attacks in Paris, so does extent of the deep failure of the French authorities.
The first failure is that of the central intelligence branches: DGSE – the French version of the CIA or Mossad, and the DCRI - the equivalent of the FBI or Shin Bet, who were supposed keep track of the suspects and thwart their plot.
A senior French official told me that in recent days investigators have been trying to piece together the terrorists' correspondence – emails, Facebook activity and phone calls. They have also confiscated the computers in their homes and turned to the cellular companies. "It is likely that they used all of these to plan the operation," the official said.
This further illustrates the scope of the failure, as people with backgrounds of the sort possessed by Amedy Coulibaly, who carried out the attack at the kosher supermarket, should appear on every blacklist.
The 32-year-old Coulibaly, the son of immigrants from Senegal, began as an ordinary criminal and had served time for robbery and drug offenses. It was in prison that he met Cherif Kouachi, one of the perpetrators of the massacre at the Charlie Hebdo newspaper. After converting to Islam, he joined the Buttes-Chaumont network, which sent young French Muslims to fight the Americans in Iraq. The Kouachi brothers were members of the same network.
In 2010 Coulibaly and his wife Hayat Boumediene visited "terrorist guru" Jamaal Begal, an al-Qaeda terrorist who has spent years under house arrest in southern France (but not in jail). There they received training in firearms, and perhaps even planned to carry out a major attack in France.
In the same year Coulibaly was arrested on suspicion of being behind an attempt to break terrorist Smain Ait Ali from prison. In a search of Coulibaly's home, authorities found ammunition for a Kalashnikov rifle, and he was sent to jail. The Kouachi brothers were also arrested over their connection with the plot, but were released due to lack of evidence. Once Coulibaly was released, over a year ago, he and his girlfriend disappeared off the radar of the security agencies. Until last Thursday.
At the end of the week France launched an extensive manhunt for Boumedienne. Intelligence agencies initially believed that she had carried out the supermarket attack along with her husband, but had managed to escape under cover of the commotion. But on Saturday night, police sources were quoted as saying that she had already left France on January 2, days before the terrorist attacks. According to the intelligence, which is based on security cameras at the airport, Boumedienne boarded a flight to Spain and from there travelled to Turkey. Last Thursday, she apparently crossed the border into Syria.
This leads us to the second major failure: international coordination in the war on terror. After the September 11 attacks, many countries have changed their preparations in the event of attacks. This is especially the case in the United States, where a real revolution took place, with an emphasis on sharing information between the intelligence agencies. This "intelligence bath," as they call it in Military Intelligence (or "intelligence pool" in the vernacular of the Mossad), facilitates the compilation of a list of suspects who are denied entry into the United States. One of the Kouachi brothers appeared on this list.
The next step was to create an "intelligence bath" at the international level. But efforts never came to fruition. Countries sealed their borders better, with biometric systems, sophisticated computers and in-country coordination, but failed to reach cooperation on a global level. The US could prevent a terrorist from entering its territory, but France failed to use this information to keep track of him. Different information systems, different languages, different intelligence terms and many more variables, along with the desire of each country to retain its secrets, were spokes in the wheels of cooperation. An attempt to create a unified data bank for all EU countries is only in the developmental stage and far from completed.
The problems are not merely technical; some are down to legal gaps, or social and cultural differences between countries. What is permissible for American intelligence (now a little less so, due to Edward Snowden's revelations), including a violation of the rights of the individual, is strictly prohibited in France. And it is not only in France: Imagine that the German BND agency receives information about an al-Qaeda activist who grew up in Germany and is now in Yemen. A German official passes this information to the Americans, who use it to send an unmanned aircraft to eliminate him. For the Americans, the action is justified, but to the Germans it is a serious offense that could lead to jail time for the person who passed on the information. This is not how you fight terrorism.
Difficult questions
French intelligence knew that the Kouachi brothers were part of a terrorist network and that Cherif Kouachi had trained with al-Qaeda in Yemen. Why were they on the loose?
The two terrorist cells were acquainted and most likely were in coordination. How did the intelligence services fail to uncover the plot to carry out a double attack?
Who financed the terrorist attacks and who provided the terrorists with their multiple weapons - automatic machineguns, ammunition, explosives and bulletproof vests?
How were the terrorists able to make a mockery of tens of thousands of police for more than two days, until they were eliminated after 54 hours?
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