Hugo Best: Are Drones an Adverse Reaction to 9-11 and Manned Planes?

Terrorism and human rights

One of the primary difficulties of implementing effective counter-terrorist measures is the waning of civil liberties and individual privacy that such measures often entail, both for citizens of, and for those detained by states attempting to combat terror. At times, measures designed to tighten security have been seen as abuses of power or even violations of human rights.

Examples of these problems can include prolonged, incommunicado detention without judicial review; risk of subjecting to torture during the transfer, return and extradition of people between or within countries; and the adoption of security measures that restrain the rights or freedoms of citizens and breach principles of non-discrimination. Examples include: In November 2003 Malaysia passed new counter-terrorism laws that were widely criticized by local human rights groups for being vague and overbroad. Critics claim that the laws put the basic rights of free expression, association, and assembly at risk. Malaysia persisted in holding around 100 alleged militants without trial, including five Malaysian students detained for alleged terrorist activity while studying in Karachi, Pakistan. In November 2003 a Canadian-Syrian national, Maher Arar, alleged publicly that he had been tortured in a Syrian prison after being handed over to the Syrian authorities by U.S. In December 2003 Colombia's congress approved legislation that would give the military the power to arrest, tap telephones and carry out searches without warrants or any previous judicial order. Images of unpopular treatment of detainees in US custody in Iraq and other locations have encouraged international scrutiny of US operations in the war on terror. Hundreds of foreign nationals remain in prolonged indefinite detention without charge or trial in Guant�namo Bay, despite international and US constitutional standards some groups believe outlaw such practices. Hundreds of people suspected of connections with the Taliban or al Qa'eda remain in long-term detention in Pakistan or in US-controlled centers in Afghanistan. China has used the "war on terror" to justify its policies in the predominantly Muslim Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region to stifle Uighur identity. In Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Yemen and other countries, scores of people have been arrested and arbitrarily detained in connection with suspected terrorist acts or links to opposition armed groups. Until 2005 eleven men remained in high security detention in the UK under the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001.

Many would argue that such violations exacerbate rather than counter the terrorist threat. Human rights advocates argue for the crucial role of human rights protection as an intrinsic part to fight against terrorism. This suggests, as proponents of human security have long argued, that respecting human rights may indeed help us to incur security. Amnesty International included a section on confronting terrorism in the recommendations in the Madrid Agenda arising from the Madrid Summit on Democracy and Terrorism (Madrid 8?11 March 2005):

:"Democratic principles and values are essential tools in the fight against terrorism. Any successful strategy for dealing with terrorism requires terrorists to be isolated. Consequently, the preference must be to treat terrorism as criminal acts to be handled through existing systems of law enforcement and with full respect for human rights and the rule of law. We recommend: (1) taking effective measures to make impunity impossible either for acts of terrorism or for the abuse of human rights in counter-terrorism measures. (2) the incorporation of human rights laws in all anti-terrorism programmes and policies of national governments as well as international bodies."

While international efforts to combat terrorism have focused on the need to enhance cooperation between states, proponents of human rights (as well as human security) have suggested that more effort needs to be given to the effective inclusion of human rights protection as a crucial element in that cooperation. They argue that international human rights obligations do not stop at borders and a failure to respect human rights in one state may undermine its effectiveness in the international effort to cooperate to combat terrorism.

Preemptive neutralization

Some countries see preemptive attacks as a legitimate strategy. This includes capturing, killing, or disabling suspected terrorists before they can mount an attack. Israel, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Russia have taken this approach, while Western European states generally do not.

Another major method of preemptive neutralization is interrogation of known or suspected terrorists to obtain information about specific plots, targets, the identity of other terrorists, whether or not the interrogation subjects himself is guilty of terrorist involvement. Sometimes more extreme methods are used to increase suggestibility, such as sleep deprivation or drugs. Such methods may lead captives to offer false information in an attempt to stop the treatment, or due to the confusion brought on by it. These methods are not tolerated by European powers. In 1978 the European Court of Human Rights ruled in the Ireland v. United Kingdom case that such methods amounted to a practice of inhuman and degrading treatment, and that such practices were in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights Article 3 (art. 3).

Non-military preventive actions

The human security paradigm outlines a non-military approach which aims to address the enduring underlying inequalities which fuel terrorist activity. Causal factors need to be delineated and measures implemented which allow equal access to resources and sustainability for all people. Such activities empower citizens providing 'freedom from fear' and 'freedom from want'.

This can take many forms including the provision of clean drinking water, education, vaccination programs, provision of food and shelter and protection from violence, military or otherwise. Successful human security campaigns have been characterized by the participation of a diverse group of actors including governments, NGOs, and citizens.

Foreign internal defense programs provide outside expert assistance to a threatened government. FID can involve both non-military and military aspects of counter-terrorism.

Another preventative action that has been used is the threat of and use of pork and pork products against radical religious groups that feel that contact with pork will render them unclean. The bodies of killed terrorists are daubed with lard and buried wrapped in pigskin.

Military intervention

Terrorism has often been used to justify military intervention in countries like Pakistan and Iran where terrorists are said to be based. That was the main stated justification for the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. It was also a stated justification for the second Russian invasion of Chechnya.

History has shown that military intervention has rarely been successful in stopping or preventing terrorism. Although military action can disrupt a terrorist group's operations temporarily, it rarely ends the threat.

Thus repression by the military in itself (particularly if it is not accompanied by other measures) usually leads to short term victories, but tend to be unsuccessful in the long run (e.g. the French's doctrine described in Roger Trinquier's book Modern War used in Indochina and Algeria). However, new methods (see the new Counterinsurgency Field Manual) such as those taken in Iraq have yet to be seen as beneficial or ineffectual.

Mathematical Modeling of the Interaction Between Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism and Its Policy Implications

Mathematical modeling is currently being used to manage security policy. Specifically, scholars and practitioners of security studies are tackling the new challenge of managing terrorism. This technology can only be used if correct predictions are made. Models are being built to test predictions of situations that have never happened before through empirically validated theories. This allows the world to adapt at a quicker rate while being managed successfully. An essay in the September/October 2008 issue of Complexity explains such a modeling system looking at terrorism, counter-terrorism and their effects. The most general policy conclusions drawn from the models are: the counter-terrorism forces should close off the borders of any terrorist crossings; keep initial terrorist strength small and counter-terrorist effectiveness high; have large initial counter-terrorist forces; avoid any incentives for bandwagoning or growing sympathy for the terrorists. To keep the sympathy factor small, policy should withhold the general public of information regarding the terrorists? success or activities. The activities of terrorists and counter-terrorists take place within the general public from which members are recruited. As terrorist and counter-terrorist activity increases, so will the need for recruitment. The models created have not yet discovered the implications of recruitment and therefore are only useful for situations in which terrorism and counter-terrorism is kept small.

Planning for response to terrorism

Police, fire, and emergency medical response organizations have obvious roles. Local firefighters and emergency medical personnel (often called "first responders") have plans for mitigating the effects of terrorist attacks, although police may deal with threats of such attacks.

Target-hardening

Whatever the target of terrorists, there are multiple ways of hardening the targets to prevent the terrorists from hitting their mark, or reducing the damage of attacks. One method is to place Jersey barrier or other sturdy obstacles outside tall or politically sensitive buildings to prevent car and truck bombing.

Aircraft cockpits are kept locked during flights, and have reinforced doors, which only the pilots in the cabin are capable of opening. English train stations removed their garbage cans in response to the Provisional IRA threat, as convenient locations for depositing bombs.

Scottish stations removed theirs after the 7th of July bombing of London as a precautionary measure. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority purchased bomb-resistant barriers after the September 11 terrorist attacks.

A more sophisticated target-hardening approach must consider industrial and other critical industrial infrastructure that could be attacked. Terrorists need not import chemical weapons if they can cause a major industrial accident such as the Bhopal disaster or the Halifax explosion. Industrial chemicals in manufacturing, shipping, and storage need greater protection, and some efforts are in progress. To put this risk into perspective, the first major lethal chemical attack in WWI used 160 tons of chlorine. Industrial shipments of chlorine, widely used in water purification and the chemical industry, travel in 90 or 55 ton tank cars.

To give one more example, the North American electrical grid has already demonstrated, in the Northeast Blackout of 2003, its vulnerability to natural disasters coupled with inadequate, possibly insecure, SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) networks. Part of the vulnerability is due to deregulation leading to much more interconnection in a grid designed for only occasional power-selling between utilities. A very few terrorists, attacking key power facilities when one or more engineers have infiltrated the power control centers, could wreak havoc.

Equipping likely targets with containers (i.e., bags) of pig lard has been utilized to discourage attacks by Islamist suicide bombers. The technique was apparently used on a limited scale by British authorities in the 1940s. The approach stems from the idea that Muslims perpetrating the attack would not want to be "soiled" by the lard in the moment prior to dying. The idea has been suggested more recently as a deterrent to suicide bombings in Israel. However, the actual effectiveness of this tactic is probably limited as it is possible that a sympathetic Islamic scholar could issue a fatwa proclaiming that a suicide bomber would not be polluted by the swine products.

Command and control

In North America and other continents, for a threatened or completed terrorist attack, the Incident Command System (ICS) is apt to be invoked to control the various services that may need to be involved in the response. ICS has varied levels of escalation, such as might be needed for multiple incidents in a given area (e.g., the 2005 bombings in London or the 2004 Madrid train bombings, or all the way to a National Response Plan invocation if national-level resources are needed. National response, for example, might be needed for a nuclear, biological, radiological, or large chemical attack.

Damage mitigation

Fire departments, perhaps supplemented by public works agencies, utility providers (e.g., gas, water, electricity), and heavy construction contractors, are most apt to deal with the physical consequences of an attack.

Local security

Again under an incident command model, local police can isolate the incident area, reducing confusion, and specialized police units can conduct tactical operations against terrorists, often using specialized counter-terrorist tactical units. Bringing in such units will normally involve civil or military authority beyond the local level.

Medical services

Emergency medical services will bring the more seriously affected victims to hospitals, which will need to have mass casualty and triage plans in place.

Public health agencies, from local to national level, may be designated to deal with identification, and sometimes mitigation, of possible biological attacks, and sometimes chemical or radiologic contamination.

Counter-terrorism tactical units

Today, many countries have special units designated to handle terrorist threats. Besides various security agencies, there are elite tactical units, also known as special mission units, whose role is to directly engage terrorists and prevent terrorist attacks.

Such units perform both in preventive actions, hostage rescue and responding to on-going attacks. Countries of all sizes can have highly trained counter-terrorist teams. Tactics, techniques and procedures for manhunting are under constant development.

Most of these measures deal with terrorist attacks that affect an area, or threaten to do so. It is far harder to deal with assassination, or even reprisals on individuals, due to the short (if any) warning time and the quick exfiltration of the assassins.

These units are specially trained in tactics and are very well equipped for CQB with emphasis on stealth and performing the mission with minimal casualties. The units include take-over force (assault teams), snipers, EOD experts, dog handlers and intelligence officers. See Counter-intelligence and counter-terrorism organizations for national command, intelligence, and incident mitigation.

The majority of counter-terrorism operations at the tactical level, are conducted by state, federal and national law enforcement agencies or intelligence agencies. In some countries, the military may be called in as a last resort. Obviously, for countries whose military are legally permitted to conduct police operations, this is a non-issue, and such counter-terrorism operations are conducted by their military.

See Counter-intelligence for command, intelligence and warning, and incident mitigation aspects of counter-terror.

Examples of actions

Some counterterrorist actions of the 20th century are listed below. See List of hostage crises for a more extended list, including hostage-taking that did not end violently. Representative Hostage Rescue Operations


colspan=2	Incident	! Main locale	! Hostage nationality	! Kidnappers/hijackers	! Counter-terrorist force	! Results
1972	Munich Massacre	Munich Olympics, Germany	Israeli			All hostages murdered, 5 kidnappers killed. 3 kidnappers captured and released.
1975	1975 AIA building hostage crisis>AIA Hostage Incident	AIA building, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia	US, Swedish Embassies. Mixed	Japanese Red Army	Malaysian police	All hostages rescued, all kidnappers flew up to Libya.
1976	Operation Entebbe>Entebbe raid	Entebbe, Uganda	Mixed. Israelis and Jews separated into a different room, non-Jewish hostages were released shortly after capture.	PFLP	Sayeret Matkal, Sayeret Tzanhanim, Sayeret Golani	All 6 hijackers, 45 Ugandan troops, 3 hostages and 1 Israeli soldier dead. 100 hostages rescued
1977	Hijacking of Lufthansa Flight 181	Spanish airspace and Mogadishu, Somalia	Mixed	PFLP	GSG 9, Special Air Service consultants	1 hostage, 3 hijackers dead, 1 captured. 90 hostages rescued.
1980	Iranian Embassy Siege	London, UK	Mostly Iranian but some British	Democratic Revolutionary Movement for the Liberation of Arabistan	Special Air Service	1 hostage, 5 kidnappers dead, 1 captured. 24 hostages rescued. 1 SAS operative received minor burns.
1981	Hijacking of "Woyla" Garuda Indonesia	Don Muang International Airport, Thailand	Indonesian	Jihad Commandos	Kopassus, Thailand military mixed forces	1 hijacker killed himself, 4 hijackers and 1 Kopassus operative dead, 1 pilot wounded, all hostages rescued.
1983	1983 Turkish embassy attack in Lisbon>Turkish embassy attack	Lisbon, Portugal	Turkish	Armenian Revolutionary Army		5 hijackers, 1 hostage and 1 policeman dead, 1 hostage and 1 policeman wounded.
1985	Capture of Achille Lauro hijackers	International airspace and Italy	Mixed	PLO	US military, turned over to Italy	1 dead in hijacking, 4 hijackers convicted in Italy
1993	Operation Ashwamedh	Amritsar,India	141 passengers	Islamic terrorist(Mohammed Yousuf Shah)		1 hijacker killed,all hostages rescued
1996	Japanese embassy hostage crisis	Lima, Peru	Japanese and guests (800+)	T�pac Amaru Revolutionary Movement	Peruvian military & police mixed forces	1 hostage, 2 rescuers, all 14 kidnappers dead.
2000	Sauk Arms Heist	Perak, Malaysia	2 policemens, 1 army and 1 civilian	Al-Ma'unah	Grup Gerak Khas and 20 police Pasukan Gerakan Khas mixed forces	2 hostages dead, 2 rescuers, 1 kidnapper dead and all 28 kidnappers captured.
2002	Moscow theater hostage crisis	Moscow	Mixed, mostly Russian (900+)	Chechen	Russian spetsnaz	129-204 hostages dead, all 39 kidnappers dead. 600-700 hostages freed.
2004	Beslan school hostage crisis	Beslan, North Ossetia-Alania, (an autonomous republic in the North Caucasus region of the Russian Federation).	Russian	Chechen	Mixed Russian	334 hostages dead and hundreds wounded. 10-21 rescuers dead. 31 kidnappers killed, 1 captured.
2007	Lal Masjid siege	Islamabad, Pakistan	Pakistani students	Lal Masjid students and militants	Pakistani Army and Rangers SSG commandos	61 militants killed, 50 militants captured, 23 students killed, 11 SSG killed,1 Ranger killed,33 SSG wounded,8 soldiers wounded,3 Rangers wounded, 14 civilians killed
2007	Kirkuk Hostage Rescue	Kirkuk, Iraqi-Kurdistan	Turkman Child Rescued by PUK's Kurdistan Regional Government's CTG Counter Terrorism Group in Kirkuk from Arab kidnappers	Islamic State of Iraq Al Qaeda	5 kidnappers arrested, 1 hostage rescued
2008	Operation Jaque	Colombia	Mixed	Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia		15 hostages released. 2 kidnappers captured
2008	Operations Dawn	Gulf of Aden, Somalia	Mixed	Somalian piracy and militants		Negotiation finished. 80 hostages released. RMN including PASKAL navy commandos with international mixed forces patrolling the Gulf of Aden during this festive period.
2008	2008 Mumbai attacks	Multiple locations in Mumbai city	Indian Nationals, Foreign tourists		300 NSG commandos, 36-100 Marine commandos and 400 army Para Commandos	141 Indian civilians, 30 foreigners, 15 policemen and two NSG commandos were killed.	9 attackers killed,1 attacker captured and	293 injured
2009	2009 Lahore Attacks	Multiple locations in Lahore city	Pakistan						30 March 2009, the Manawan Police Academy in Lahore, Pakistan attacked by an estimated 12 gunmen. The perpetrators were armed with automatic weapons and grenades or rockets and some were dressed as policemen. During the course of the attack and siege eight police personnel, two civilians and eight gunmen killed and 95 people injured.[1] At least four of the gunmen captured alive by the security forces.	The terrorist attacks took place at the offices of Rescue-15 and the (ISI) as well as the official residences of police officers at the Plaza Cinema Chowk at around 10:10am. At least three terrorists, Toyota Hiace van laden with high quality explosives. The toll of the explosion was heavy. No less than 70 vehicles and motorcycles and dozens of adjacent and nearby buildings, mostly used for shops and offices, were damaged. Among the dead were 16 policemen, an army officer and many civilians including a 12-year-old boy. More than 251 others were injured.

Designing Anti-terrorism systems

The scope for Anti-terrorism systems is very large in physical terms (long borders, vast areas, high traffic volumes in busy cities, etc.) as well as in other dimensions, such as type and degree of terrorism threat, political and diplomatic ramifications, and legal issues. In this environment, the development of a persistent Anti-terrorism protection system is a daunting task. Such a system should bring together diverse state-of-the-art technologies to enable persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions, and enable potential actions. Designing such a system-of-systems comprises a major technological project.

A particular design problem for this system is that it will face many uncertainties in the future. The threat of terrorism may increase, decrease or remain the same, the type of terrorism and location are difficult to predict, and there are technological uncertainties. Yet we want to design a terrorism system conceived and designed today in order to prevent acts of terrorism for a decade or more. A potential solution is to incorporate flexibility into system design for the reason that the flexibility embedded can be exercised in future as uncertainty unfolds and updated information arrives. And the design and valuation of a protection system should not be based on a single scenario, but an array of scenarios. Flexibility can be incorporated in the design of the terrorism system in the form of options that can be exercised in the future when new information is available. Using these ?real options? will create a flexible Anti-terrorism system that is able to cope with new requirements that may arise.

Law enforcement counter-terrorist organizations by country

+ indicates military organization allowed to operate domestically.

Examples include:

Military counter-terrorist organizations by country

Given the nature of operational counter-terrorism tasks national military organizations do not generally have dedicated units whose sole responsibility is the prosecution of these tasks. Instead the counter-terrorism function is an element of the role, allowing flexibility in their employment, with operations being undertaken in the domestic or international context.

In some cases the legal framework within which they operate prohibits military units conducting operations in the domestic arena; United States Department of Defense policy, based on the Posse Comitatus Act, forbids domestic counter-terrorism operations by the US military. Units allocated some operational counter-terrorism task are frequently Special Forces or similar assets.

In cases where military organisations do operate in the domestic context some form of formal handover from the law enforcement community is regularly required, to ensure adherence to the legislative framework and limitations. such as the Iranian Embassy Siege, the British police formally turned responsibility over to the Special Air Service when the situation went beyond police capabilities.

Hugo Best

Friday, February 10, 2012

Are Drones an Adverse Reaction to 9-11 and Manned Planes?