Border Drug Wars, Bombs & Terrorism

By Ben Furman, former FBI Counterrorism Chief

Our southwestern border is surely in the same zip code as Hell!

A November 16, 2008 Los Angeles Times article pointed out that, “Few regions of the U.S. are immune to drug-trafficking organizations that have caused horrendous death and destruction." So far in 2008 drug related violence in Mexico has left nearly 4,000 of its people dead. And the violence has spread deep into the United States. There is a trail of slayings, kidnappings and other serious crimes that lead to at least 195 cities as far as Atlanta, Boston, Seattle and Honolulu.

The current top four Mexican drug-trafficking organizations battling for turf and dominance have brought a war once considered a foreign problem to the doorstep of local U.S. communities. There’s ample documentation to show the violence associated with the Mexican drug wars is wreaking havoc on the northern border towns of Mexico, and this violence has shattered our border.

This September intelligence sources advised the Washington Times that Mexico's drug cartel members and police officials in Mexico, trying to spare their families from the violence that has overwhelmed many Mexican border towns, could begin relocating them to the United States. This could prove problematic for us and result in more homicides and home invasions along the southwestern border, increased availability of high-powered weapons to Mexican drug smugglers already in the U.S., and the likelihood that the family members would continue the drug operations once they are here.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reported an unprecedented surge in violence along the 1,951-mile US-Mexico border with 892 border agents assaulted in fiscal year 2008 - a stark increase when compared to the 638 assaults during the first 10 months of fiscal year 2006.

Interdiction operations by our law enforcement agents and Mexican authorities are ongoing, and though I monitor a lot of it there’s “sameness” to the operations. A dozen or so cartel members arrested, large quantities of drugs recovered, weapons and the like has become usual fare, and the “busts” are generally carried next to the papers’ obit pages. But there is a recent upward trend that’s caught my attention. The use of remotely detonated bombs or improvised explosive devices (IED) is becoming more pervasive, and could well become the major kill weapon employed by the cartels in the future. IEDs are the largest killers of U.S. troops in Iraq, and according to Pentagon figures, through January 20, 2008 IEDs have killed 1,327 troops and wounded 11,861 others.

During a January 2006 raid on a drug gang in Laredo, Texas, federal agents seized two completed IEDs, materials for making 33 more, 300 primers, 1,280 rounds of ammunition, five grenades, nine pipes with end caps, 26 grenade triggers (14 with fuses and primers attached), 31 grenade spoons, 40 grenade pins, 19 black powder casings, a silencer and cash.

On February 27, 2008 in Mexico City an attack meant to kill the police chief failed when the bomb exploded prematurely, killing the bomb carrier. The attack according to the police was planned from outside the capital and it raised fears that Mexico's drug cartels could be starting a bomb campaign against the government in reaction to an army-led operation to crush them.

In an October 2007 sting operation, police “purchased” seven IEDs from a bomb maker and recovered two more in his house in Freemont, California. Some were designed to detonate remotely by cell phone transmission.

At this juncture the IEDs being used by the drug assassins aren't identical to those manufactured by the Iranians. But it doesn’t take much of a stretch to believe going forward as the drug cartels want even more sophisticated deadly devices that they will obtain the expertise of the terrorist bomb makers. It's past arguing that the MS-13 gang members and “coyotes” (human traffickers) have been smuggling illegal aliens from the Middle East into the U.S. for years, and many of those illegals are from Iran. Most certainly members of the elite Revolutionary Guards (RG) have infiltrated our country by crossing the southern border. It is important to remember the man in charge of the RG is appointed by and reports to the supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the true power broker of Iran. Any chaos that the Iranians can cause the U.S. fits into their jihadist plans, and this might include providing IED technology to those involved in the border wars. Today the RG are training the Iraqi insurgents in the use of IEDs and in the manufacture and use of the even more deadly explosively formed projective (EFP) capable of destroying an Abrams tank.

A border patrol veteran in an April 2008 confidential report said that, “They’ve (drug cartels) got weapons, high-tech radios; computers, cell phones, GPS, spotters and they react faster than we can. They have no hesitancy to attack the agents on the line with anything from assault rifles and improvised Molotov cocktails to rocks, concrete slabs and bottles.” Soon, I’m afraid; he can add remotely detonated IEDs to the arsenals of the drug cartels.

TAGS:advice counterterrorism stories independent publishing news publisher reviews

Terrorism & Other than Mexican (OTM) Illegal Aliens

By Ben Furman, former FBI Counterterrorism Chief

Other than Mexican (OTM) is a strange term. What does it mean? Ninety percent of the illegal aliens who cross the U.S. southern border each year from Mexico are Mexicans. The rest that come from all parts of the world are labeled Other than Mexican illegals by our government.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that oversees Customs, Immigration and Border Patrol enforcement said in a recent oversight committee that tens of thousands of OTMs enter the U.S. illegally each year. They have no idea of the actual number. Their statistics for 2005 show that of the 98,000 illegal aliens detained by the U.S. Border Patrol from countries other than Mexico (OTMs) 70 percent (68,800) were immediately released into the interior of the U.S.

Why? Their home countries wouldn’t take them back and because we didn’t have a place to keep them, each was given a “ticket” and released after promising to return for his court date. Twelve percent returned in 2006, which left over 60,000 unaccounted for, and in some Texas Border Patrol sectors during this time the “no-show” rates were as high as 98 percent. Many of those released have serious prior felony criminal records. On October 18, 2005 the Border Patrol finally ended the “Catch & Release” program. Now the illegal aliens are supposed to be kept until the legality of their status is determined and then deported if they are here illegally. Sounds easy and logical until anti-illegal alien groups and attorneys get involved to prevent any deportation.

But here’s the core reason for my post. In 2005 DHS said 850 people from countries of “special interest” were apprehended crossing our southern border. In 2006 DHS reported between 2001 and 2005 that 45,000 OTMs from countries on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terror (SST) or from countries that protected terrorist organizations and their members were released into America’s general public. This was done even though immigration officers could not confirm their identity. Remember, these are people that were caught, which represents only one out of ten that actually cross the border. That means that approximately 400,000 illegal aliens from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, whose identities could not be verified and who could be working for terrorist groups, are freely moving about the country.

The FBI has testified numerous times that since it’s easy to enter the U.S. illegally without detection, terrorist groups believe that operationally there are no reasons to get visas, etc. to gain legal entry. Also, there’s an increase in the number of illegal aliens from countries with al Qaeda connections that are changing their identities to appear Hispanic by dropping their Islamic surnames. Posing as Hispanics they blend in with the mass of illegal aliens crossing the border. Again, DHS doesn’t have any idea how many potential terrorists have entered the country using this tactic.

Professional smugglers, called “coyotes” and MS-13, a notorious Salvadorian criminal gang that has infiltrated all of our lower 48 states, use their pipelines to smuggle Middle Eastern and Asian illegals into the U.S. for $10,000 to $20,000 per person with no questions asked. A coyote caught with his “cargo” recently admitted that none of the men he has transported over the past six years was looking for a job or to “help his family.”

Do the math. There are roughly 15 to 20 million illegal aliens in the U.S. and ten percent of those are OTMs. Any percentage of the OTMs that are from hostile countries constitutes hundreds of thousands. It’s the barn door analogy with frightening, staggering safety implications. Unless we can devise a system for rooting out the hostiles who have infiltrated our country, we’re in for a grim day ahead. I shook my head in disbelief when I heard two members of the new administration’s transition team say granting amnesty to all illegal aliens will be a priority. And amnesty my friends, also includes the terrorists!

TAGS: advice counterterrorism storiesindependent publishing news publisher reviews

Consequence Management -- WMD

By Ben Furman, former FBI Counterterrorism Chief

Foreign and domestic terrorists continue to poke and probe at our defenses with the sinister intent to use chemical, biological or nuclear weapons (WMD) against us. If they are successful, can we respond to and manage the death and destruction that we’ll face in the aftermath?

Giant steps have been taken to coordinate and incorporate civilian and military assets into dedicated prevention and response forces, and fast paced efforts are ongoing. This post will be a quick introduction. The “how consequence management works” will be addressed in subsequent posts.

Is the terrorist threat real? Yes, though many conspiracy theorists think not and believe our “evil” government is behind it all, including blowing up the twin towers. Their brain cells are fried and as for the rest of us, our memories are short. Most Americans equate 9/11 as the beginning of the terrorist attacks on our soil. Not so. The 1993 bombing of the New York twin towers was the precursor. The subsequent investigation and trial testimony revealed the terrorists meant to topple one tower into the other and shroud both in a cascading cloud of cyanide gas. If the plan had worked tens of thousands of us would have been killed. It didn’t because the cyanide gas was destroyed in the heat of the explosion rather than vaporizing into a death cloud as the terrorists planned. And do you recall Ramzi Yousef, the man who built the bomb? Two years later Yousef was arrested for plotting to blow up 11 U.S. passenger planes to cause, as he boasted, “One spectacular day of terrorist rage.”

Besides wringing our hands worrying about an attack what are we doing? Actually we’re doing a number of things. Here’s one step. Presidential Decision Directive (PDD) 39 was issued by President Clinton in 1995 to establish response and management guidelines for a WMD terrorist attack. The PDD divides threats into two categories: crisis response and consequence management. Since the issuance of the guidelines there have been a series of directives and laws that further define the response and management mission.

In a best case scenario, which never happens, here’s the way a crisis response works. The plot is uncovered, the terrorists that are preparing to set off a WMD are identified, and the operation is neutralized or “taken down.” The homeland response for responding to such crises falls under the purview of the FBI. Overseas the response is handled by the Department of State, Office of Counterterrorism.

Consequence management comes into play if terrorists successfully deploy a WMD. The PDD also details how the physical, socio-economic, and psychological effects of a chemical or biological attack should be addressed, to include the coordination of local, regional, national, and international assets before, during, and after an attack. These assets include the military working in concert with its domestic counterparts.

In reality there has to be joint planning and coordination between the crisis response and the consequence management folks long before there is an incident. There can’t be a rigid division between the two and there isn’t. Information sharing and real time communication are essential. I can say from personal experience that during a crisis, even a small one, there’s a lot of confusion and information that turns out not to be true. To minimize this all of the right pieces have to be connected before an attack occurs. During a crisis this Abbott and Costello routine can’t happen.

Abbott: Now let's see. We have on the bags - we have Who's on first, What's on second, I Don't Know's on third.

Costello: Well then who's on first?

Abbott: Yes!

Costello: I mean the fellow's name!

Abbott: Who!

Are we totally prepared? Of course not, but force ready responders are being trained and deployed. Much more needs to be done but progress is being made. The situation is far from being all doom and gloom.

TAGS: adult counterterrorism books advice counterterrorism books independent publishing news publisher