GCIS INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING: Aviation Security: Policy Responses to Address Terrorism Threats

Testimony before the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Committee on State Government
 

ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center

SOURCE: The Heritage Foundation

31March2011 10:20pmEST

GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: The 9/11 attacks were a wake-up call for policymakers on the threats facing aviation security. In 1988, a bomb that was detonated on Pan Am Flight 103 killed 243 passengers and 16 crew members (commonly referred to as the Lockerbie bombing). The perpetrator of the bombing did not board the plane, but rather planted a bomb in a suitcase which detonated while the plane was in the air. Most other aviation threats before 9/11 were largely motivated by attempts to extort money or some other agenda where those aboard were largely left unharmed and the airplane intact. The 9/11 attacks were different in that they introduced the idea of suicidal hijackings and reinforced the fact that al-Qaeda, which had targeted the U.S. before, was still seeking to inflict catastrophic harm on the United States. (read full report)

"GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE" is an intelligence briefing presented by Griffith Colson Intelligence Service, and provided to the public for informative purposes only. All subject matter is credited to it's source of origin, and is not intended to represent original content authored by GCIS, it's partners or affiliates. All opinions presented are those of the author, and not necessarily those of GCIS or it's partners.

GCIS INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING: Foreign Affairs report: How al Qaeda Works

ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center

SOURCE: Foreign Affairs

24February2011 11:00pmEST

GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: Despite nearly a decade of war, al Qaeda is stronger today than when it carried out the 9/11 attacks. Before 2001, its history was checkered with mostly failed attempts to fulfill its most enduring goal: the unification of other militant Islamist groups under its strategic leadership. However, since fleeing Afghanistan to Pakistan's tribal areas in late 2001, al Qaeda has founded a regional branch in the Arabian Peninsula and acquired franchises in Iraq and the Maghreb. Today, it has more members, greater geographic reach, and a level of ideological sophistication and influence it lacked ten years ago.

Still, most accounts of the progress of the war against al Qaeda contend that the organization is on the decline, pointing to its degraded capacity to carry out terrorist operations and depleted senior leadership as evidence that the group is at its weakest since 9/11. But such accounts treat the central al Qaeda organization separately from its subsidiaries and overlook its success in expanding its power and influence through them. These groups should not be ignored. All have attacked Western interests in their regions of operation. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has also long targeted the United States, but its efforts have moved beyond the execution stage only in the last two years, most recently with the foiled plot to bomb cargo planes in October 2010. And although al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has not yet attacked outside its region, al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) was reportedly involved in the June 2007 London and Glasgow bomb plots. (read full report)

"GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE" is an intelligence briefing presented by Griffith Colson Intelligence Service, and provided to the public for informative purposes only. All subject matter is credited to it's source of origin, and is not intended to represent original content authored by GCIS, it's partners or affiliates. All opinions presented are those of the author, and not necessarily those of GCIS or it's partners.

GCIS INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING: Wikileaks: 3 previously unknown 9/11 plotters revealed

ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center

SOURCE: JPOST

02February2011 1:06pmEST

GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: A newly released US diplomatic cable discloses the existence of previously undisclosed participants in the Sept. 11, 2001, plot: a group of Qatari men who conducted surveillance of targets in New York and the Washington area before leaving the United States on the eve of the attacks.

The three men flew into the United States on Aug. 15, 2001, and "visited the World Trade Center, the Statue of Liberty, the White House, and various areas in Virginia" before flying on to Los Angeles, according to the cable, part of the cache of documents obtained by the antisecrecy group WikiLeaks.

But a US official, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to comment on classified material made public by WikiLeaks, said that the three men were "looked at" within days of the attacks and that investigators concluded they could not be charged.

"There is no manhunt," said the official, playing down a report in Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper that disclosed the contents of the cable. "There is no active case. They were looked at, but it washed out." (read full report)