Reviews – The Devil’s Darning Needle.

Hi-tech counter-terrorism thriller (Rating 5 of 5)
Cheryl C. Malandrinos

A unique and engaging hi-tech counter-terrorism thriller can be found in "The Devil's Darning Needle" by Ben Furman. Years ago, FBI undercover agent Frank Durazo infiltrated the terrorist organization known as FALN and helped to bring their leader Ojeda Sanchez to justice...but it cost him greatly. Now that Sanchez is out of prison, Frank believes the FALN is regrouping and planning an attack on world leaders gathered at the President's gravesite. Unconvinced by Duranzo's suggestion about Sanchez and already stretched for resources, Frank's superiors want real proof before they'll put manpower behind him. But time is running out. Duranzo's son, Luis, who's building top-secret micro-aerial vehicles for the U.S. Military is missing and the woman Frank has loved for years is in danger...and Sanchez and the FALN plot is connected to all of them. Can Frank stop Sanchez and the FALN in time without losing anyone he loves? "The Devil's Darning Needle" is an intense, engaging read from page one. Frank's history with Sanchez propels this story forward and keeps the reader turning pages. While I'm not usually a big fan of backstory taking up the beginning chapters of a novel, Furman's decision to set the scene for the attack that will unfold in present day is a smart one. The author's wealth of experience in counter-terrorism truly shines through and draws the reader right into a world of hi-tech weapons, the mind of a terrorist, and the work of the FBI. This novel also provides an interesting look into how politics impacts the work of the department. As a woman reading this book, I must admit that Furman handled the relationships in "The Devil's Darning Needle" very well. Not every author can portray personal relationships in such an action-packed novel, but Furman made it seem easy. Kudos go out to cover designer Frank Rivera. The picture of the Capitol Building in the background with a dragonfly whose transparent wings float into the title is stunning, as is the color selection. Readers who enjoy the work of Tom Clancy should definitely check out "The Devil's Darning Needle" (The Devil's Darning Needle)


Hi-Tech Thriller (Rating 5 of 5)
Rich DiSilvio

Very unique story. Despite it being fiction, it's clear that the author writes from a perspective of experience. Only a former FBI chief of counter-terrorism could write something this real and this terrifying. The technologies available to criminals these days exceed what most ordinary citizens could ever imagine. Mixed in with this evil plot is a tangled web of love and hate that keeps the reader nicely engaged. Highly recommended (The Devil's Darning Needle)

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The Devil’s Darning Needle -- Excerpt

The Obrero Gang

By Ben Furman

The Obrero Gang was Frank Durazo, Johnny Salinas and Jimmy Tag Along. The ten year olds had grown up on a nameless, carved-out street in Barrio Obrero on the outskirts of San Juan, and throughout the barrio it was well known that when one was sighted the other two would be right behind. It was time to hide the valuables.

Frank was the biggest and fastest, and he could more than hold his own with the older kids. He possessed the hand-eye coordination of a shell-game operator, and in moments of fancy, thought his athletic ability would be his ticket out of poverty. Perhaps a baseball scholarship. His grades could be better. He was bright enough, but he realized that he wasn’t the gifted student who could breeze through school effortlessly. But he was dogged in anything he decided to do, and through will and determination he got by.

Jimmy Tag Along’s mother had explained to them that Jimmy would always remain a “little boy.” They didn’t understand what she meant, but it really didn’t matter. In a sacred ceremony the boys had sealed their friendship by cutting their thumbs with a pocket knife and smashing their thumbs together. “Now we’re blood brothers,” Johnny said. They vowed to take care of each other come what may.

It was sweltering and nearing noon as the gang stepped from the wooded path that ended at El Gordo’s gas station. Their target was the soft drink machine that was pushed tightly against the side of the building next to the bathrooms. El Gordo was the only employee and whenever he was working on a car or eating, which was often, they would hit the machine. They found him wedged under an old pickup with a bucalaito in one hand and a wrench in the other. Good. It would take only a few minutes for them to score.

As they moved in the pent-up heat in the blacktop burned through the soles of their sandals, and each hopped from one foot to the other to reach the shade of the building.

Johnny liked the heat. As he told Frank too often, “It’s good for business. The hotter the more people drink, and that means more money in our pockets. Easy money!”

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United In Hate by Dr. Jamie Glazov -- a review

United In Hate -- The Left's Romance With Tyranny and Terror is a book that examines the seamy underbelly of the radical Left which considers Western society and its values an anathema. Dr. Jamie Glazov, the Managing Editor of FrontPage Magazine, methodically details the causational factors that have lead modern Leftists to adhere to the death and destruction mantra of tyrannical Islamic Jihadists.

The Twin Towers are destroyed, 2973 people die in the attack and the radical Left cheers; the war in Iraq is won and the Left expels a disgusted sigh; totalitarian thugs kill innocent millions that the Left justifies as a “cleansing” required to forge a utopian society; suicidal Jihadists shred shoppers in malls with nail bombs and are excused by the Left as door-matted victims striking back at their oppressors; women are vilified, stoned, mutilated and killed by radical Muslims as Leftist feminists remain silent, save here in America where they rail mightily against a country club that’s denied membership to a female executive.

What draws Leftists moth-like toward the annihilating fires of unbridled totalitarianism, or drives them to slavishly worship at the feet of dictators that kick them to the curb when they are considered no longer useful? Why does the Left cleave to a radical Islamic terrorism that vows to destroy all non-believers, including them? Dr. Glazov answers these and other “head scratching” questions in a court-ready presentation of the Left’s mindset that will make forensic psychologists proud.

The Left’s hatred and rejection of Western civilization, its freedoms and values, begins with an acute sense of alienation from it, and unable to “fit in” the Left believes radical societal change, regardless of the consequences, is necessary. After all it’s the West’s fault that the Left has no sense of purpose or direction. Although the Left vehemently argues against this premise, its words and actions prove Dr. Glazov’s case.

The ideological descendents of the communist/progressive Left that spent its capital hoping the West would lose the Cold War to the Soviet Union are today’s leftist core. Based on their hatred for the United States, the Left has forged a symbiotic relationship with radical Islam, whose hatred for America equals theirs. Both make it clear that they consider Western civilization evil and unworthy of preservation. Violent revolution is the Left’s path to change; the Jihadists’ follow the path of war and annilation.

Some might think Dr. Glazov has taken a wrong turn in his analysis of the radical Left’s agenda and beliefs. If so, they should read the scurrilous quotes of Michael Moore extolling the virtues of the “Iraqi freedom fighters,” or Ward Churchill’s and Jeremiah Wright’s crowing after 9/11 that “America’s chickens have come home to roost.” Or, they should examine the genuflexing before the world’s tyrants by the likes of Jimmy Carter, Sean Penn and Tom Hayden. Dr. Glazov’s take on the radical Left is correct and as sharp as a tightly focused laser.

Should the book cause even one radical Leftist to re-examine his or her contorted beliefs and return from the “dark side,” Dr. Glazov’s efforts will be a resounding success. A great thought provoking read!

Ben R. Furman
Former FBI Counterterrorism Chief
www.blackhawkpress.com/blog

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The FATA & Terrorism

By Ben Furman, Former FBI Counterterrorism Chief

In February 2008 Mike McConnell, the Director of US National Intelligence, testified before the House Intelligence Committee and said this, “The FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) of Pakistan serve as a staging area for al Qaeda’s attacks in support of the Taliban in Afghanistan as well as a location for training new terrorist operatives for attacks in Pakistan, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the United States.”

Pakistan is a terrorism crossroad and its border provinces provide a safe haven that has allowed al Qaeda to regenerate critical elements of its attack capability, including re-filling key leadership positions.

Geographically, the FATA are bordered by: Afghanistan to the west along the Durand Line, the term for the 1,610 mile border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the North-West Frontier Province, the Punjab to the east, and Balochistan to the south. The seven tribal areas of Khyber, Kurram, Bajaur, Mohamand, Orakzai, north and south areas of Waziristan form the FATA. They lie in a north to south strip adjacent to the west side of the six frontier regions of Peshawar, Kohat, Tank, Banuu, Lakki and Dera Ismail Khan that also lie north to south. According to CIA figures the total population of the FATA in 2000 was 3,341,070 people, or roughly 2% of Pakistan's population. It is a rural territory with only 3.1% of the population residing in established townships.

The region is nominally controlled by the central government of Pakistan. In reality the Pashtun tribes inhabit the territory, and they are ruled by tribal elders. The tribes are fiercely independent and not overly friendly with Pakistan’s central government, which has done little to root out the terrorist enclaves that are easily located since they operate in the open with impunity.

The central government is shaky and operates in constant fear of a military junta. Pakistan has about 85 nuclear weapons that are under the total control of the Pakistani military, and Pakistan is steadily adding to its nuclear weapon stockpile. For example, China has agreed to build two nuclear power plants in Pakistan. This deal – especially if it does not contain mechanisms to prevent nuclear material from being transferred from the new civilian plants to military facilities – signals a nascent nuclear arms race in Asia. A 2007 poll of 117 nongovernmental terrorism experts found that 74 percent consider Pakistan, not Iran, the country most likely to transfer nuclear technology to terrorists in the next three to five years.

How did Pakistan become a nuclear weapon country? Through the illicit work of a nationalist Islamic scientist, A. Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan’s “Islamic bomb” and the purveyor of sensitive nuclear technology across the Middle East and Asia – to Libya, North Korea and perhaps to other countries. There may be other Pakistani scientists who have been or would be willing to work with other countries or with terrorists to help them acquire nuclear weapons.

So where is this leading? We have tribal areas sympathetic to al Qaeda, and a country with nuclear technology and devices that possibly could be acquired by al Qaeda through its liaisons with Pakistani militants. A recent National Intelligence Estimate said, “al Qaeda will continue trying to acquire and employ chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear material, and it would not hesitate to use them if it develops sufficient capability.”

Pakistan is an ally, but there’s a grave danger it could also be an unwitting source of a terrorist attack on the United States, perhaps by weapons of mass destruction. The Mumbai, India attack by the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists (1) with alleged links to elements of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency has raised the tension between the two countries to a tipping point. Pakistan military resources recently directed against terrorist activity in the FATA are being re-deployed along the India/Pakistan border to address a possible attack by India. This is a real possibility since there have been three violent conflicts between the countries since 1947, and a contentious and sometimes violent border dispute over Kashmir continues. Al Qaeda thrives on this kind of volatility and once out of the spotlight it will plot the next attack.

On his list of problems to address our President must put Pakistan and the tribal areas near the top.

- - - - Footnotes - - - -

(1) Lashkar-e-Taiba is a self-described militant Islamic group based in Pakistan and Kashmir. Their stated goal is to end any Indian occupation of Kashmir and to further promote a fundamentalist Islamic government in Pakistan and throughout South Asia.
The Pakistani government stated that senior members of Lashkar-e-Taiba have confessed to being involved in the attacks. And India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on January 6, 2009, that evidence suggested official Pakistani agencies likely supported the terrorist organization in its attack on Mumbai.

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The Terrorist Attack on Mumbai, India and the Media

By Ben Furman, former FBI Counterterrorism Chief

Here are my thoughts about the media coverage of the terrorist attack on Mumbai, formerly Bombay, India. The media, as it often does, caused my blood pressure to skyrocket by its soft-pedaling of the identification of the terrorist attackers as Muslims. I guess reporting this fact was something it considered offensive and politically incorrect. But this reporting by omission follows the media’s template of not calling terrorists “terrorists” for fear of creating more terrorists; or, refusing to call our war on terrorism a war by defining it as, “regional conflicts of opposing factions.” Only the media can make sense of this circular reasoning. At least the media is consistent. It does the same with illegal aliens that have invaded our country by calling them undocumented workers; or failing to mention in the descriptions of bank robbers that the perpetrators are black, Mexican, and so on. Rather than helping, this ostrich approach to reporting is divisive. We have to get past the reluctance to discuss things as they are without the socially engineered egg shell-walking.

And what’s up with the media’s apparent lack of interest to delve deeper into the tragic fate of the innocent victims at the Chabad Jewish Center? Was the terrorist targeting of the Center about the State of Israel, or was it just a continuation of the gruesome medieval tradition of anti-Semitism? This answer is worth a line or a couple of words from the media.

Why wasn’t the media “all over” the Muslim organizations that rail with an uncontrolled fanaticism against cartoons of Mohammed that they consider insulting? Shouldn’t there be an explanation why they remained eerily silent about the atrocities in Mumbai?

The Mumbai slaughter should be a wake-up call to all Western liberals who believe that jihadism can be defeated through “I’m okay; you’re okay” happy talk. Many Americans, particularly those who buy into the media’s global vision, seem to have been lulled into a false feeling of security because we haven’t been attacked here since 9/11. But Muslim-based jihadism is a world that continues to pose a serious threat to every open democratic society.

A study of ancient history shows us that great civilizations, from Egypt and Persia to Rome and Byzantium, broke down in stages of superficially interspersed tranquil decades. We’re on the same glide path but we're moving at a greatly accelerated downward rate – the time spans are getting compressed. Because of the unprecedented fragility of our communications systems, our intertwined power grids and complex transportation systems, the technological West is highly vulnerable to sabotage and destruction. We need the media to step up, minus its rose colored glasses, and report the world as is, rather than the way the media wants it to be.

So how long will it take us to drive the final nail into jihadism? If we are ever vigilant and take the fight to the terrorists, it will probably take a hundred years or more. And if we don't defeat the jihadists our world as we know it will end.


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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!

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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.

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The National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC)

In the aftermath of 9/11 the world heard the scathing indictment of the U.S. intelligence agencies charged with preventing terrorist attacks. The dots weren’t connected! Why? Because intelligence agencies that had bits and pieces of the attack information hadn’t provided it to their counterparts. There was a myriad of reasons for this, including protecting one’s turf, fear of critical information leaks to the press and the like, but the “stove pipe” analogy was the most troubling. “Stovepiping” was the practice of only sending information up the chain of command within an agency. The 9/11 Commission also called this reluctance to share the “Gorelick Wall.”

Jamie Gorelick was the U. S.Deputy Attorney General under the Clinton administration, who wrote the 1995 intelligence guideline memorandum for disseminating terrorist information between agencies. And even though there was back-and-forth finger pointing about the extent intelligence agencies were prohibited from sharing crucial information, her memorandum was widely cited as the legally restrictive lynch pin. The intelligence community thought a violation of the memorandum guidelines would lead to civil suits and felony criminal prosecutions by the Justice Department. The bottom line: Agents believed they could lose their homes, pensions, be fired and sent to prison. A very chilling cloud to work under, and it wasn’t a comforting sight to see Jamie Gorelick sitting on the 9/11 Commission panel overseeing the hearings.

But some good did come in the form of recommendations by the Commission. The National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) was formed. Heard of it? Unless you’re part of the intelligence community most likely you haven’t, or if you did you’ve forgotten about it as you went about day-to-day tasks. After 9/11 a number of agencies known by their initials were mixed together to form alphabet soup organizations, such as the Office of Homeland Security. Of all the groups the NCTC was one that made sense to me.

The NCTC was established by President Bush in August 2004, to serve as the primary U.S. organization to integrate and analyze all intelligence pertaining to terrorism and counterterrorism, and to construct strategic operational plans. The NCTC also houses the central knowledge bank on terrorism information, and it developed the architecture that allows agencies such as the FBI and CIA ready access to the millions of terrorist related documents contained in the database.

The NCTC is staffed by analysts from 16 agencies that are co-located with the CIA and FBI Watch Centers at the Liberty Crossing Center in Northern Virginia. There analysts from these agencies work side-by-side scouring foreign and domestic terrorism information from 30 networks or more in an effort to uncover and disrupt terrorist plots.

Is everything perfect? No, but we’re getting our act together. It isn’t by accident that we haven’t suffered a major terrorist attack on our home territory since 9/11, but for logistical reasons and to protect ongoing investigations, many positive results aren’t trumpeted in the New York Times or on the evening news. You can take it to the bank that because our intelligence agencies are working together around the clock there have been attacks prevented, plots uncovered, and terrorists captured or killed that we don’t know about, and quite frankly, don’t need to. Fighting terrorism is an ongoing battle. Now the terrorists don’t have an open field; they can’t act with impunity and they’re getting more than they’re giving.

I’ll have more to say about the NCTC in later postings.

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