"Tactical Realities of the Toulouse Shootings"

That's the title of the latest 'Security Weekly' bulletin from Stratfor, reproduced here with permission. Here are a few excerpts.

... government bureaucracies do not deal well with ambiguity -- and terrorist actors, particularly at the grassroots and lone-wolf levels, are nothing if not ambiguous. They tend to be insular and dedicated, and they might not be meaningfully connected to the command, control and communication mechanism of any known militant group or actor. This makes them exceedingly hard to identify, let alone pre-empt, before an attack is carried out.

As the political debates in London following the 2005 attacks (and in Washington following 9/11) have shown, that governments somehow are expected to prevent all terrorist attacks. When one occurs, political investigations into the cause of intelligence failures ensue and, on occasion, considerable finger-pointing and agency reorganizing. The public, after all, needs to feel secure.

But the uncomfortable truth is that there is no such thing as complete security. Given the nature of the terrorist threat and terrorist actors, no intelligence or security service in the world could identify every aspiring militant who lives in or enters a country or could pre-empt their potential acts of violence. This is impossible even in states that employ draconian security measures, and the challenge is obviously amplified in societies that value civil liberties and due process. The challenge is especially pronounced in cases where the subject is a citizen who has not yet broken any laws, or there is not sufficient evidence to support prosecution for any violations. A distinct tension exists between security and individual liberties.

Within that context, then, the tactical challenges and expectations faced by counterterrorism agencies are useful to consider.

. . .

... in the real world, intelligence is seldom, if ever ... black-and-white. And quite often, investigators and analysts are left to work with bits of partial information. This problem is compounded by the very structure of the jihadist movement, which consists of al Qaeda, its franchises, grassroots sympathizers and lone wolves. The jihadist landscape has been described as a "network of networks" or a "network of relationships," a characterization that has become even more apt as the capabilities of the central al Qaeda group have been degraded. In application, this means that when considering any particular plot, there may not be any clear-cut chain of command or communications networks on which to focus intelligence resources. The network within which jihadists operate is difficult to delineate, as are the targets they choose to attack. This same ambiguity also exists in the non-jihadist realm as seen in attackers such as Anders Breivik, Timothy McVeigh, Theodore Kaczynski and Eric Rudolph.

. . .

Not all puzzles are equal. Investigating an attack after the fact is a matter of identifying the puzzle pieces and placing them together to form a complete picture of what happened. But identifying plotters and their plans before an attack occurs is far more difficult. It is more like sifting through the pieces of thousands of different puzzles, all jumbled together in one big pile, and then attempting to create a complete picture, without knowing what the end result -- the attack -- will look like.

. . .

At this time, it is impossible to tell how many individuals or small cells are or might be planning attacks in France, Britain or the United States. There are many variables involved, and no government agency should be expected to provide complete security against potential -- but unknown -- threats.

There's more at the link. Useful and recommended reading for all those interested in security issues, particularly for private citizens concerned about defending themselves and their families against this sort of threat. The article shows very clearly that relying on government agencies to detect and prevent such attacks before they occur is a futile hope. When push comes to shove, we have to take responsibility for our own security by being vigilant, remaining aware of our surroundings, and being prepared to act quickly and decisively to get out of harm's way if the need should arise.

Peter