Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to give recommendations that could be adopted by domestic intelligence agencies in the case of an attack on the Hoover Dam by the Ansar al-Din terrorist group. Domestic intelligence agencies are quite capable as far as safeguarding the USA from attacks within the country. However, groups such as Ansar al-Din are a threat and may require domestic intelligence agencies to take bold steps to keep them at bay. This paper gives an overview of the Ansar al-Din movement including its motivations and capability as well as its hypothetical terrorist attack on Hoover Dam. Moreover, this paper goes over the intelligence analyst strategies that could be used by security agencies to collect information from a variety of sources. Finally, there is a description of the measures that the intelligence agencies can engage in to stop the plan by the Ansar al-Din group before it comes to fruition.
Introduction
An attack on an important infrastructural element of the USA by the Ansar al-Din terrorist movement would be hugely detrimental to the country, while earning the terrorist organization plaudits amongst entities with enmity with the USA. It is the mandate of intelligence agencies to uncover and foil such plots before they materialize. This paper would give recommendations to the domestic security agencies as regards how they can prevent such an attack from taking place on American soil.
Profile of the Terrorist Organization
Ansar al-Din enjoys support and fosterage from the more ill-famed Al Qaeda group under the umbrella of the Islamic Maghreb movement. It mainly operates in the Sahel region of Africa which traverses Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger amongst other states. Its major agenda is to forcibly impose Islamist governments in West and Central Africa. Ansar al-Din’s mainly Tuareg constituents espouse Salafist Islamic ideology that is extreme and characterized by deadly violence. Salafi is a purist form of Islam that inspires the name Ansar al-Din or “defenders of the faith”. It is headed by Iyad ag-Ghali, a Tuareg, whose profiled by the US government as a terrorist.
As a result of its extremist viewpoints, Ansar al-Din often undertakes acts of terrorism, mainly concentrated in the Sahel region. The movement has greatly destabilized West African states and constantly engages national armies and UN peacekeeping forces in the region. Over the past few years, its activities have resulted in the deaths of more than 4000 people. It administrates chunks of the countries whose forces it has subdued and imposes on these lands its mode of religion with disastrous consequences. Ansar al-Din often closes ranks with other Salafi movements in the Sahel region to effect changes in the political scene. Ansar al-Din’s viewpoints are very different from those of the USA. Due to its subscription to Islamist ideology, the movement is opposed to liberal views, including Western values of free speech and democracy. Additionally, one of the group’s objectives is to advance their version of militant Islam in African countries, which should be worrisome for all global citizens.
Similar to many other terrorist organizations, the Ansar al-Din terrorist group has significant resources. It often subdues state military bases in the Sahel region and obtains weapons that it uses to perpetuate war crimes and terrorist activity. Apart from receiving donations from sympathetic lenders, it kidnaps foreign nationals and obtains extortionate amounts of ransom for their release. It has smuggling networks through which it can raise money in the black markets of the world. Additionally, it uses its connections to larger terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda to gain a footing in the oil industry.
Brief Overview of the Hypothetical Attack
The hypothetical attack involves Ansar al-Din demolishing Hoover Dam in a campaign of terror and unprecedented aggression. Hoover Dam is one of the major pillars of commerce and agriculture in the USA. It is constructed across the Colorado River in a deep U-shaped canyon. Behind the massive wall that is the Hoover Dam lies Lake Mead. The waters of Lake Mead provide several important services to US residents. In one, they provide water for domestic, recreational, and industrial uses to the residents of major cities such as Las Vegas. Secondly, they are used in the generation of hydroelectric power, which is consumed by American households and industries. Additionally, the dam provides water for agriculture to farms in the downstream plains. Hoover Dam is one of the vital infrastructural elements in the USA.
By demolishing Hoover Dam, Ansar al-Din would send a strong message to the USA. Many lives and livelihoods would be lost downstream of the reservoir due to flooding and the destruction of vital infrastructural components such as roads, railway lines bridges, and large-scale farms. It is likely to cripple power distribution in many parts of the nation. It would take the USA significant time to recover after such a catastrophic event while at the same time giving Ansar al-Din a lot of notoriety and popular support among people who resent the USA and what it represents. The whole world would take notice of these events and there would be questions asked about the efficiency of the USA’s intelligence-gathering capacity.
Intelligence Analyst Strategies
Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) Strategy
One of the major ways enemy groups communicate is through signals. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) must be adequately prepared to intercept any signals used by Ansar al-Din within the borders of the USA. Communications between militants often contain vital information regarding their attacks such as dates, methods to be used, locations, and participants.
Signals may be sent by militant groups such as Ansar al-Din in a variety of ways including phone calls, text messages, radio transmitters, and even weapons and radar systems. In some cases, the intercepted systems may reveal encrypted information that requires decryption before being acted upon by the security organs stated above. After obtaining information regarding Ansar al-Din’s plan to attack Hoover Dam, persons of interest should be identified and arrested to obtain more comprehensive details about the act of terrorism. Security agencies can be advised by the intelligence agencies on preemptive postures they can assume to prevent the attack.
Human Intelligence (HUMINT) Strategy
Intelligence on Ansar al-Din can be obtained through intelligence operatives going undercover and discovering information about the attackers and their plans. For this tactic to be effective, the specific agents deployed by the intelligence branches must be adept at spying and deception, which are important attributes in HUMINT strategies. For instance, they can take appropriate disguises such as recruiters or militiamen, and take up roles that bring them into contact with members of the Ansar al-Din who are involved in the attack on Hoover Dam. HUMINT is the best intelligence-gathering method once a base-level amount of data regarding the plan for Hoover Dam has been established.
It is the best way to identify the specifics of the plan that can help the intelligence agencies destroy Ansar al-Din’s plan before it is put into action. The FBI in the USA can employ its manpower in surveillance activities that monitor the activities of potential members of Ansar al-Din to establish their identities as such and understand their plans.
Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) strategy
Ansar al-Din can be thwarted if intelligence agencies use the OSINT strategy. In this case, the agencies would develop a comprehensive profile of Ansar al-Din from information available in existing publications such as newspaper articles and social media. It could use information about financial transactions undertaken by Ansar al-Din operatives in the USA, if any. Open-source information can reveal a lot about Ansar al-Din’s plans, including the items they are purchasing, what people perceive of them at any given time, any changes in leadership or strategy within the organization, and any the nature of their most recent terrorist activity. The information can facilitate intelligence agencies in understanding the most likely course of action Ansar al-Din are going to take and how to prepare for it. Additionally, security agencies can interrogate available footage from public areas to understand any movements made by personal entities affiliated with the Ansar al-Din movement.
Recommendations
A Centralized Intelligence Information Repository should be Established and made Accessible to all Internal Security Agencies
Sharing information on terrorist activities is an important step towards countering their activities. In the USA, several intelligence agencies protect citizens from acts of terror on American soil. One of these agencies is the NSA which is heavily involved in SIGINT analysis. The NSA uses a variety of covert methods such as wiretapping persons of interest, using viruses to hack and retrieve digitally stored information as well as tracking and recording attempts to infiltrate American information systems by foreign and terrorist organizations. On the other hand, the FBI is commonly involved in HUMINT and OSINT strategies that enable it to acquire personal and strategic information about terrorists that may be a threat to USA security. As such, each of the security agencies in the USA already possesses a lot of information on terrorists such as Ansar al-Din but they may not be sharing it at a time the organization poses a threat to national security.
This paper recommends that all the intelligence agencies pool together the data they have as it would enable them to share the information they already have thus increasing their capacity to gain more intelligence and at the same time, improving their ability to prevent the attack on Hoover Dam. Presently, organizations work in isolation and only share intelligence when mandated to do so or on a case-by-case basis (Bigo, 2019).
Sharing intelligence in a collaborative framework validates certain links between terrorist activities which reveals new insights into how terrorists operate. Intelligence sharing can reduce duplication of work between the agencies thus reducing costs and saving time which is crucial when working against terrorists. Notably, the data repository should only be accessed by privileged members of the contributing agencies to prevent it from being accessed by outsiders with adverse motives.
From the perspective of open-source intelligence, intelligence operatives should collaborate with civilians more
With the widespread use of the internet, civilians have unprecedented levels of information. Some of them may have information unavailable to intelligence agencies. The information could be sourced from social media interactions with strangers or stumbled upon in the course of research or entertainment. More importantly, such information may not be meaningful until it gets into the hands of intelligence operatives who can act upon it to protect American interests. Intelligence operatives such as DHS and the FBI are relatively insular and mostly engage with civilians when making arrests or during undercover missions whereby civilians cannot discover their identity. As such, it is relatively difficult for civilians to collaborate with security agencies on any matter.
To gather more intelligence, security agencies should collaborate extensively with civilians who may offer profound insights as regards operatives of groups such as Ansar al-Din. For instance, people working at the Hoover Dam may have noticed a new employee with peculiar tendencies or obvious red flags such as lacking a coherent personal history who may be gathering intelligence for the Ansar al-Din movement.
They may wish to report the individual to intelligence agencies but may lack a channel to reach them without raising suspicion. The DHS and the FBI in particular should take part in community projects where some of their agents interact with civilians and establish a working relationship that could be crucial in the long run. Additionally, intelligence and counter-intelligence operations necessitate that security agencies take every advantage they can to subdue the opponent. However, intelligence agencies must be very critical of any collaboration with members of the public as enemy intelligence operatives may use it as an opportunity to spy on intelligence agencies under the guise of collaborative citizens.
The Department of Homeland Security should Bait Terrorists with “Soft Targets” to Gain Information about their Organizations
The DHS may be aware that Ansar al-Din is planning an attack on the Hoover Dam. However, they may not have in-depth details of the attack and may be short of intelligence due to a variety of reasons including Ansar al-Din being shrewd in their operations. In such an event, the DHS can bait terrorists in the USA by creating a soft target for terrorists that can draw them out and thus give the DHS a starting point in their prevention plan. For instance, they may learn the modes of attack terrorists are likely to use, and the level of technology currently accessible by terrorist organizations among other important insights. Ansar al-Din is closely affiliated with many other terrorist groups and apprehending terrorists from one terrorist group may prove invaluable as they may have information regarding the plans of Ansar al-Din.
The plan to bait terrorists may come with a certain amount of risk as it may backfire and the DHS may not apprehend terrorists as expected. However, such a plan should have several in-built fail-safes such as ensuring that no civilians lose their lives if the plan backfires. Additionally, the plan to bait the terrorists may require intensive preparation to prepare the soft target as well as to raise interest among terrorist groups. A case in point is the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001, during which intelligence and surveillance agencies were completely blindsided by the Al Qaeda terrorist group (Cayford & Pieters, 2018). This recommendation should only be taken as a last resort at a point where security agencies are completely devoid of meaningful intelligence to avert a large-scale terror attack that is almost certain to happen.
Conclusion
Ansar al-Din is a terror group, with links to other extremist Islamic groups that have devastated African states. It takes hardline stances against liberal policies such as those taken by the US government. Ansar al-Din is affiliated with the Al Qaeda group which has in the past performed atrocities against US citizens. It is conceivable that the Ansar al-Din movement would undertake to demolish a critical piece of American infrastructure such as the Hoover Dam across the Colorado River. To offset such a possibility, intelligence agencies and mainly the DHS, FBI, and NSA would have to assume certain novel steps such as sharing information on the attack and Ansar al-Din as a whole on an unprecedented scale.
They could also take a deliberate effort to collaborate with civilians and particularly those associated with Hoover Dam. If they are completely unable to obtain the type of intelligence that could stop the plan by Ansar al-Din, they could bait the terrorists into an attack that enables them to gain the type of intelligence necessary to stop the attack quickly.
References
Bigo, D. (2019). Shared secrecy in a digital age and a transnational world. Intelligence and National Security, 34(3), 379–394. Web.
Cayford, M., & Pieters, W. (2018). The effectiveness of surveillance technology: What intelligence officials are saying. The Information Society, 34(2), 88–103. Web.