The devolution

Hattab eventually ran into disputes within the GSPC as the group was increasingly drawn to the transnational jihadist campaign espoused by al Qaeda. He “resigned” (though he was effectively deposed) as the group’s leader in 2001 and was succeeded by Nabil Sahraoui, who declared the GSPC’s allegiance to al Qaeda. Security forces killed Sahraoui in 2004.

In a message issued on Sept. 11, 2006, al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri announced that the GSPC had joined forces with al Qaeda in a union he hoped would be “a thorn in the neck of the American and French Crusaders and their allies, and an arrow in the heart of the traitors and apostates.” On Sept. 13, GSPC acknowledged the merger on its Web site with a message from its emir, Abu Musab Abd al-Wadoud, who wrote, “We have full confidence in the faith, the doctrine, the method and the modes of action of [al Qaeda’s] members, as well as their leaders and religious guides.”
The newly-established al Qaeda franchise in Algeria was not idle for long. On Oct. 19, 2006, it conducted two IED attacks, one against a police station in El Harrach, an eastern suburb of Algiers, the second against a fuel storage site belonging to the French company Razel in Lakhdaria. On Oct. 29, 2006, the group conducted near-simultaneous VBIED attacks against two Algerian police stations in Reghaia and Dergana. While simultaneous VBIED attacks were something seen in al Qaeda operations, these attacks involved vehicles parked near their targets rather than suicide vehicles and, as such, resembled past GSPC attacks, as did the selection of police stations as targets. Because of these features, the attacks were seen as examples of a hybrid, or transitional, kind of attack.

Other transitional attacks continued into early 2007, such as the twin attacks on March 5, 2007, which targeted foreign oil workers and Algerian security forces, indicating AQIM was incorporating the security-force targets of the GSPC with the foreign-influence targets of al Qaeda.

The focus on foreign interests and the energy sector was seen in several other attacks and attempted attacks against foreign oil workers and pipelines in late 2006 and early 2007. In spite of this focus, to date, AQIM has not been able to launch any truly disruptive attacks against the Algerian energy sector.

On April 11, 2007, AQIM passed another threshold when the group employed two suicide VBIEDS in attacks against separate targets in Algiers. One device was directed at the prime minister’s office in the city center and the second targeted a police station near the international airport in the eastern part of the city. At least 33 people reportedly were killed in the blasts and more than 150 wounded. These attacks marked the first suicide attacks in Algeria connected with GSPC or AQIM and signified a change in tactics.

However, the group’s increased operational tempo and less discriminate target selection came with consequences. In mid-2007 the Algerian government launched a massive operation against AQIM that resulted in large losses of men and materiel for the group. AQIM’s shift in targeting strategy also caused disagreements within the insurgency’s leadership. The schism arose between members who favored the tradition GSPC target set and opposed killing civilians, and those members who were more heavily influenced by al Qaeda and wanted to hit foreign and symbolic targets with little regard for civilian casualties.

In spite of the government crackdown, and in the face of growing internal dissent, AQIM accelerated its suicide bombing campaign, and there were several other suicide attacks during the last three months of 2007. These attacks included the Sept. 6 bombing of a crowd waiting to greet Algerian President Abdel Aziz Bouteflika in Batna that killed 22 people and injured more than 100; a Sept. 8 suicide VBIED attack against a naval barracks in Dellys that killed 30; and twin suicide VBIED attacks on Dec. 11 that targeted the constitutional court and the headquarters of the U.N. refugee agency in Algiers that killed 47 people, including 17 U.N. employees.

AQIM conducted six suicide bombing attacks against military and police targets between January 2008 and the Aug. 19, 2008, VBIED attack against the police academy in Les Issers. During this time, military and law enforcement pressure by the Algerian government continued, as did the public criticism of AQIM for killing innocents. The criticism reached a crescendo after the Les Issers attack, which killed largely poor people looking for employment with the police. AQIM has only conducted one suicide attack since August 2008, and the bulk of its operations have been in sparsely populated areas instead of cities. It is unclear at this point whether these observable shifts are in response to the criticism of AQIM’s tactics or if they are a result of the government’s efforts to dismantle the group.

Large VBIEDs are resource intensive. In fact, the explosives required to construct one large VBIED could be used to manufacture many smaller IEDs or suicide vests. Since the Les Issers attack, AQIM has conducted several IED attacks but these have all involved smaller IEDs, and the number of bystander deaths has dropped as the attacks have appeared to have been more carefully aimed at government or foreign targets. Of course, suicide bombers are also a resource that can only be used once, and it takes time and effort to recruit new bombers.

We will be watching carefully to see if the current trend away from the employment of large VBIEDs in urban areas is a temporary lull caused by government pressure and a lack of resources, or if it is an intentional shift designed to assuage public anger. It is very difficult for an insurgent organization to thrive in an environment where the local population turns against it, and perhaps the AQIM leadership has learned a lesson from the high cost the GIA paid after it began killing civilians and lost public support.

In addition to the military and law enforcement pressure, the Algerian government has been very busy in its efforts to apply ideological pressure to AQIM. One way this pressure has been applied is in the form of former militant leaders associated with the group criticizing its change in targeting and tactics. For example, after the Les Issers bombing in August 2008, GSPC founder Hassan Hattab called on the militants to lay down their arms and surrender. There is also talk that the government may soon expand an amnesty offer to include members of the organization who have been excluded from the current amnesty offer because they were deemed to have too much blood on their hands. Like previous amnesty offers, this expansion could serve to further weaken the organization as members choose to turn themselves in.

In Mauritania, attacks linked to AQIM began as early as December 2007, but AQIM militants there have not displayed the capability to carry out sophisticated attacks. Most attacks in Mauritania involve amateurish small-arms assaults such as the attack on French tourists on Dec. 23, 2007, or the Feb. 1, 2008, shooting at the Israeli embassy in Nouakchott, Mauritania’s capital. As we were writing this, we learned of the June 23 shooting of an American teacher in Nouakchott. The man was reportedly gunned down outside the school where he taught, and Mauritanian officials are blaming the attack on AQIM rather than criminals.

The attacks in Mauritania have shown rudimentary tactics with poor planning, and the militants associated with AQIM in Mauritania simply have not displayed the ability to mount a large-scale, coordinated attack. The group’s activities in Mali and Niger are also mainly constrained to low-level attacks against government or military outposts and foreign mining sites and personnel in the northern stretches of those countries. AQIM also conducts training and engages in smuggling and kidnappings for ransom in this deserted region.

This means that, in the end, in spite of all the hype associated with the AQIM name, the group is essentially a rebranded GSPC and not some sort of revolutionary new organization. It has adapted its target set to include foreign interests, and it did add suicide bombing to its repertoire, but aside from that there has been very little movement toward AQIM’s becoming a truly regional threat.

That said, AQIM has received a lot of attention from the al Qaeda core leadership, which has sought to support it however it can and spur it on beyond Algeria. On June 23, 2009, al Qaeda media wing As Sahab released a 35-minute video statement from Abu Yahya al-Libi entitled “Algeria Between the Sacrifice of Fathers and Faithfulness of Sons.” As his name implies, al-Libi is himself from Libya, and one of the things he does in the video is urge militants in Algeria, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Libya, Tunisia and Morocco to mobilize and join under the “banner, command and emirate” of AQIM. The video appears to be an attempt by the al Qaeda leadership to counter ideological attacks by the Algerian government as well as AQIM’s regional stagnation.

Coming Home to Roost?
In addition to fighting against the regime in Algeria, Algerian militants have also been very conspicuous on jihadist battlefields such as Bosnia, Chechnya, Afghanistan and Iraq. Some studies have even concluded that Algerians were the single largest group of foreign jihadists who fought in Iraq during the height of the insurgency.

One of the things we have been anticipating for several years now is a boomerang effect as foreign jihadists leave places such as Iraq and Pakistan and return home. While many foreign jihadists have been killed in such places, those who survive after fighting sophisticated foes like the American military are not only hardened but also possess insurgent tradecraft skills that make them far more lethal when they leave those battlefields than when they entered them. Indeed, we have seen a migration of IED technology and tactics from Iraq to other theaters, such as Afghanistan.

With developments in Iraq over the last few years that have made Iraq increasingly inhospitable to foreign jihadists, and with Pakistan now quickly becoming less friendly, many of the Algerian militants in those places may be seeking to return home. And this brings us back to the anomalous vehicular ambush on June 17.

That operation, while a common type of attack in Algeria, was uncharacteristically deadly. It is plainly possible that the high death toll was merely a fluke. Perhaps the AQIM militants got lucky or the Algerian gendarmes targeted in the attack made a fatal mistake. However, the increased death toll could also have been a result of superior IED design, or superior planning by the operational leader of the ambush. Such a shift could indicate that an experienced operational commander or bombmaker has come to AQIM from someplace like Iraq or Pakistan. It will be very important to watch the next few AQIM attacks to see if the June 17 attack was indeed just an anomaly or if it was the beginning of a new and deadly trend.

The Death of a Top Indonesian Militant

Sept. 23, 2009
On Saturday, Sept. 19, the Indonesian National Police announced that a DNA test has positively identified a man killed Sept. 17 as Noordin Mohammad Top. Top was killed in a raid on a safe-house in the outskirts of Solo, Central Java, that resulted in a prolonged firefight between Indonesian authorities and militants. Police said four militants were killed in the incident and three more were taken into custody. (Two of them were arrested before the raid.) Authorities also recovered a large quantity of explosives during the raid that they believe the militant group was preparing to use in an attack on Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Indonesian National Police had reported Sept. 17 that the dead man’s fingerprints matched Top’s. But given several inaccurate reports of Top’s demise in the past, combined with reports that the body believed to be Top’s was headless — perhaps due to the explosion of a suicide belt — most observers were waiting for DNA confirmation before removing Top’s name from the pinnacle of the organizational chart of Tanzim Qaedat al-Jihad.

Now that Top’s name officially has been scratched off the list, big questions emerge: Can Tanzim Qaedat al-Jihad continue without him? Can the group be effective as a militant organization? And who will step up to fill the void left by Top?
The Importance of Leadership
All three of these questions touch on the issue of leadership. Without leadership, militant groups wither and/or disintegrate. Without skilled leadership, militant groups lose their ability to conduct effective attacks. Quite simply, leadership, skill and professionalism make the difference between a militant group wanting to attack something — i.e., possessing intent — and the group’s ability to successfully carry out its intended attack — i.e., its capability.

Although on the surface it might seem like a simple task to find a leader for a militant group, in practice, effective militant leaders are hard to come by. This is because militant leadership requires a rather broad skill set. In addition to personal attributes such as ruthlessness, aggressiveness and fearlessness, militant leaders also must be charismatic, intuitive, clever and inspiring. This last attribute is especially important in an organization that seeks to recruit operatives to conduct suicide attacks. Additionally, an effective militant leader must be able to recruit and train operatives, enforce operational security, raise funds, plan operations, and then methodically execute the plan while avoiding the security forces constantly hunting the militants down.

The importance of leadership to a militant organization has been wonderfully illustrated by the trajectory of al Qaeda’s franchise in Saudi Arabia. Under the leadership of Abdel Aziz al-Muqrin the Saudi al Qaeda franchise was extremely busy in 2003 and 2004. It carried out a number of high-profile attacks inside the kingdom and put everyone from the Saudi monarchy to multinational oil companies in a general state of panic. With bombings, ambushes and beheadings, it seemed as if Saudi Arabia was on its way to becoming the next Iraq. Following the June 2004 death of al-Muqrin, however, the organization began to flounder. The succession of leaders appointed to replace al-Muqrin lacked his operational savvy, and each one proved ineffective at best. (Saudi security forces quickly killed several of them.) Following the February 2006 attack against the oil facility at Abqaiq, the group atrophied even further, succeeding in carrying out one more attack, an amateurish small-arms assault in February 2007 against a group of French tourists.

The disorganized remaining jihadist militants in Saudi Arabia ultimately grew frustrated at their inability to operate on their own. Many of them traveled to places like Iraq or Pakistan to train and fight. In January 2009, many of the militants who remained in the Arabian Peninsula joined with al Qaeda’s franchise in Yemen to form a new group called al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) under the leadership of Nasir al-Wahayshi, the leader of al Qaeda in Yemen who served under Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan before being arrested in Iran. Al-Wahayshi was returned to Yemen in 2003 through an extradition deal between the Yemeni and Iranian governments and subsequently escaped from a high-security prison outside Sanaa in 2006.

Al Qaeda in Yemen’s operational capability improved under al-Wahayshi’s leadership, and its operational tempo increased (even though those operations were not terribly effective.) In the wake of this momentum, it is not surprising that the frustrated members of the all-but-defunct Saudi franchise agreed to swear loyalty to him. The first real fruit of this merger was seen inside Saudi Arabia in the Aug. 28 attempted assassination of Saudi Deputy Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef. That the plot had to be planned and launched from Yemen reveals AQAP’s weakness inside the kingdom, and the plot’s failure demonstrates that, overall, AQAP is far from an effective organization.

Like the Saudi node, the fortunes of other al Qaeda regional franchises have risen or fallen based upon the ability of the franchise’s leadership. For example, in August 2006 al Qaeda announced with great fanfare that a splinter of the Egyptian jihadist group Gamaah al-Islamiyah had become al Qaeda’s franchise in Egypt. Likewise, in November 2007 al Qaeda announced that the Libyan Islamic Fighting group (LIFG) had joined its constellation of regional groups.

But neither of these new franchise groups ever really got off the ground. While a great degree of the groups’ lack of success may have resulted from the oppressive natures of the Egyptian and Libyan governments — and the aggressive efforts those governments undertook to control the new al Qaeda franchises following the announcements of their creation — we believe the groups’ near total lack of success also stems in large part from the lack of dynamic leadership. Recently, LIFG leaders have issued statements speaking out against al Qaeda’s operational principles and general methodology.

Dynamic leaders are indeed hard to find. Even though Indonesia has an estimated population of more than 240 million, Top — considered the most dangerous and most wanted man in Indonesia before his death — hailed from Malaysia, not Indonesia. He was an outsider like the Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who brought al Qaeda in Iraq into the global spotlight.

Of course, not every leadership change is disastrous to a militant group. Sometimes a new leader breathes new life and energy into a group (like al-Wahayshi in Yemen), or the group has competent lieutenants able to continue to operate effectively after the death of the leader (like al Qaeda in Iraq after the death of al-Zarqawi). Top’s replacement, and how the leadership transition affects the group, must therefore be closely monitored.

Topping Top
Top was an accomplished operational commander. He was responsible for a number of terrorist attacks in Indonesia, including the 2002 and 2005 Bali bombings, the 2003 JW Marriott bombing in Jakarta, the 2004 attack on the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, and most recently, the July 17 bombings of the JW Marriott and the Ritz-Carlton in Jakarta.

Because of these attacks, Top and his militant colleagues were under extreme pressure from the Indonesian authorities, who were aided by the Australian and American intelligence services. Many of Top’s closest associates, like Ridhwan Isam al-Deen al-Hanbali and Azahari bin Husin, were arrested or killed, and operations launched by Indonesian authorities thwarted several of the group’s planned attacks between 2005 and 2009.

But external pressure was not the only challenge facing Top. He was also forced to deal with mounting ideological opposition to high-profile terror attacks from within Jemaah Islamiyah itself, a difference of opinion that led to Top’s split with Jemaah Islamiyah and his decision to form the new group Tanzim Qaedat al-Jihad in early 2006.

Yet in spite of all this external and internal pressure, Top was still able to recruit new operatives, secure funding and maintain tight operational security. Top’s penchant for security even sparked rumors that he had some sort of mystical protection, rumors fanned by the many false reports of his capture or death. The ability to operate under such trying circumstances is the mark of a seasoned leader.

In a further challenge to Tanzim Qaedat al-Jihad, two of Top’s key lieutenants also died in the Sept. 17 operation. These were Maruto Jati Sulistyo, thought to have been one of Top’s main bombmakers; and Bagus Budi Pranoto, who had previously served a three-and-one-half-year prison sentence for hiding Top and Azahari. (Pranoto, aka Urwah, was thought to have been a polished recruiter.)

Despite the deaths of Maruto and Pranoto, there are a number of potential successors to Top. Among these are Reno, aka Teddy, the reported deputy of Tanzim Qaedat al-Jihad; Saifuddin Jaelani, who reportedly recruited the suicide bombers responsible for the July hotel attacks in Jakarta; and Jaleni’s brother, Muhammad Syahrir. Of course, someone outside Top’s immediate circle could take up the fallen militant leader’s mantle. Scores of Jemmah Islamiyah militants have been released from prison in recent years, and several skilled militants like Dulmatin and Umar Patek, who have fled to the Philippines, could return. And senior Jemmah Islamiyah militants like Zulkarnaen, who enjoy respect within the group, also remain at large.

No matter who replaces Top, the follow-on investigation to the operation that resulted in the death of Top will surely prove challenging to the future leadership of Tanzim Qaedat al-Jihad. Operations like the one that resulted in Top’s death offer not only the opportunity for capturing or killing militants but also the potential for a huge harvest of intelligence. Indonesian authorities (aided by their allies) are surely attempting to exploit any information gained in the raid in an effort to locate other operatives, safe-houses and weapons caches. Indeed, Top himself was found due to intelligence gathered from the arrest of an associate named Rohmat on the same day as the raid in which Top died. Because of this intelligence windfall, we can anticipate a string of raids by the Indonesian government in the following days and weeks.

And while Top was able to weather such operations in the past, now that he is gone, it remains to be seen if his replacement is capable of withstanding the pressure and keeping the group together and operationally effective.

U.S.: More Revelations in the Zazi Case

Sept. 24, 2009
A motion seeking pre-trial detention for Najibullah Zazi was filed in federal district court on Sept. 24 in Brooklyn, by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. Zazi, who was arrested with two other men (one of whom was his father) on Sept. 19 and charged in a criminal complaint with making false statements to investigators, was indicted on Sept. 23 on a charge of conspiracy to use one or more improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

The detention motion filed on Sept. 24 sought to keep Zazi in government custody pending the outcome of his trial and made two arguments for Zazi’s continued detention: one, that as a resident alien with strong ties to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Zazi was a flight risk; and two, as someone who was involved in a conspiracy to manufacture an IED, he was a threat to the public. Zazi’s detention hearing is scheduled for Sept. 25.

The detention motion is the most detailed account of Zazi’s activities the U.S. government has provided to date. The motion repeats previously disclosed information about Zazi’s attendance at a jihadist training camp in Pakistan, where he received instruction on manufacturing improvised explosive mixtures and devices from August 2008 through January 2009, and about his efforts to conceal his notes from the bomb-making class by scanning them and sending them to himself via Web e-mail accounts. But the statement also provides additional details pertaining to Zazi’s bomb-making notes and outlines some of the actions Zazi took prior to his trip to New York — actions that caused the authorities to have a great deal of concern about his trip.

The motion states that Zazi’s notes on bomb making contained instructions for manufacturing the improvised explosive mixture tri-acetone tri-peroxide (TATP). TATP is made from easily obtained items — acetone, peroxide and acid — but it is notoriously dangerous to make (Hamas militants nicknamed TATP “the Mother of Satan” because of its volatility and propensity to either severely burn or kill bomb-makers). TATP and other peroxide-based explosives such as HTMD have played a prominent role in several recent jihadist plots, including Richard Reid’s December 2001 attempted shoe bombing, the July 7 and July 21, 2005, subway attacks in London, and the 2006 liquid bomb plot.

According to the motion, Zazi (and his yet unnamed associates) purchased “unusually large” quantities of acetone and peroxide from beauty supply stores on several occasions in July, August and September. A search of Zazi’s computer also showed that he had searched the Internet for information pertaining to acid and peroxide. The motion also states that Zazi checked into a hotel in the Aurora, Colo., area that had a stove in it on Aug. 28 and on Sept. 6-7. A forensic examination of the fan hood on the stove in the room where Zazi stayed tested positive for acetone — an indication that Zazi was attempting to cook TATP in the room.

However, the motion also indicates that Zazi was not an experienced bomb maker and that he seems to have had problems finding the proper chemical mixture to manufacture effective TATP. This is not an uncommon problem for novice bomb makers, and we have seen attacks like the July 21, 2005, London attacks fizzle due to bad batches of TATP.

The affidavit also noted that on Sept. 6-7, Zazi attempted to communicate with another individual several times to ask about the proper mixture of ingredients to make TATP, with each communication reportedly becoming increasingly urgent in tone. This urgency, and his travel to New York — where Zazi resided prior to his 2008 trip to the jihadist training camp — likely sparked a great deal of concern among the authorities who were watching him. The concern that Zazi had manufactured TATP in Colorado and transported it to New York in his rental car may explain why authorities took the risky step of snatching and searching the car — one of the events that tipped him off to the investigation prior to his arrest.

If the facts set out in the motion are true, it would appear that the plot Zazi was involved in was quite serious, and was fairly well along in the planning stages. Because TATP has a short shelf life before it begins to decompose, it is manufactured shortly before it is to be used. Therefore, the target selection, pre-operational surveillance and operational planning were all most likely completed before Zazi began brewing the explosive, which likely explains his panicked calls on Sept. 6-7. It is not clear at this point who conducted the target selection, surveillance and planning for the attack. The government has not yet released a list of targets, but STRATFOR sources have indicated that the plot was directed against the New York subway system, a perennial target for terror plots.

The details released so far show that this case seems to have many parallels to past plots. In addition to the parallels to the London July 7 attacks — as far as the use of TATP, the potential targeting of subways using suicide bombs and the fact that Zazi’s role and his travel to Pakistan is somewhat reminiscent of July 7 plot leader Mohammed Siddique Khan — the use of a hotel to make improvised explosive mixtures is similar to the actions of Ahmed Ressam during the millennium bomb plot. Also, the travel from Colorado to New York in order to attack the subway system is similar to the case involving Ghazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer, who traveled from Bellingham, Wash., to New York where he was involved in a plot to bomb the New York subway system.

It appears that at least some of Zazi’s alleged conspirators remain at large and U.S. authorities will be seeking to round them up and charge them (especially in light of the reports that authorities allegedly recovered 14 new black backpacks during a search of an apartment in New York and that some of Zazi’s associates had also purchased acetone and peroxide.) According to information in the detention motion, it appears that Zazi was one of a group of men who traveled to Pakistan to attend the jihadist training camp. This travel may be what brought him to the attention of the authorities.

The Zazi case highlights several interesting trends that STRATFOR has been following for several years, such as the jihadists’ persistence in their efforts to hit the United States, their use of grassroots jihadists rather than professional terrorist operatives and the ability of Western intelligence to penetrate grassroots cells plotting such attacks. We will continue to carefully monitor this case because more interesting details about the plot, and how it was discovered and thwarted, are certain to surface in the coming weeks.

The Hasan Case: Overt Clues and Tactical Challenges

The next day, a lone gunman, U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, opened fire on a group of soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas. The victims were in the Soldier Readiness Processing Center, a facility on the base where troops are prepared for deployment and where they take care of certain processing tasks such as completing insurance paperwork and receiving medical examinations and vaccinations.

Even though the targets of Hasan’s attack were soldiers, they represented a very soft target in this environment. Most soldiers on bases inside the United States are normally not armed and are only provided weapons for training. The only personnel who regularly carry weapons are the military police and the base civilian police officers. In addition to being unarmed, the soldiers at the center were closely packed together in the facility as they waited to proceed from station to station. The unarmed, densely packed mass of people allowed Hasan to kill 13 (12 soldiers and one civilian employee of the center) and wound 42 others when he opened fire.

Hasan is a U.S.-born Muslim who, according to STRATFOR sources and media accounts, has had past contact with jihadists, including the radical Imam Anwar al-Awlaki. Al-Awlaki is a U.S.-born imam who espouses a jihadist ideology and who was discussed at some length in the 9/11 commission report for his links to 9/11 hijackers Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi. Al-Awlaki, who is currently living in Yemen and reportedly has contacts with al Qaeda, posted a message on his Web site Nov. 9 praising Hasan’s actions. Despite Hasan’s connections to al-Awlaki and other jihadists, it is unknown at this point if he was even aware of al-Wahayshi’s recent message calling for simple attacks, and therefore it is impossible to tell if his attack was in response to it.

However, one thing that is certain is that investigators examining Hasan’s computer hard drive, e-mail traffic and Internet history will be looking into that possibility, along with other indications that Hasan was linked to radicals.

We noted last week that by their very nature, individual actors and small cells are very difficult for the government to detect. They must somehow identify themselves by contacting a government informant or another person who reports them to the authorities, attend a militant training camp or conduct correspondence with a person or organization under government scrutiny. In the Hasan case, it now appears that Hasan did self-identify by making radical statements to people he worked with, who reported him to the authorities. It also appears that he had correspondence with people such as al-Awlaki, whom the government was monitoring. Because of this behavior, Hasan brought himself to the attention of the Department of Defense, the FBI and the CIA.

The fact that Hasan was able to commit this attack after bringing government attention to himself could be due to a number of factors. Chief among them is the fact that it is tactically impossible for a government to identify every aspiring militant actor and to pre-empt every act of violence. The degree of difficulty is increased greatly if an actor does indeed act alone and does not give any overt clues through his actions or his communications of his intent to attack. Because of this, the Hasan case provides an excellent opportunity to examine national security investigations and their utility and limitations.