Change in Terrorism Tactics Reported; Suicide Bombers Could Have Major Implications

From: ERRI DAILY INTELLIGENCE REPORT-ERRI Risk Assessment Services ^ | Monday, April 8, 2002-Vol. 8, No. 098-09:00CDT | By C. L. Staten, ERRI Sr. National Security Analyst

[vannrox]

An excellent Editorial and commentary. I suggest that readers visit this site for more articles. Go HERE.

[livius]

Excellent, and pretty scary. One sentence in particular caught my attention:" The terrorists of today also do not claim responsibility for their acts."

This is probably one of the most difficult things, because it makes attributability and, therefore, capture and punishment, extremely difficult. One of the things that has always been used to reject the possibility of terrorism in events such as Flight 800 and the other recent downing (Flight 587?) is that nobody claimed responsibility. I've never found this very convincing, and knowing that this is now part of terrorist policy makes it even less convincing.

[Sabertooth]

If an attacker is voluntarily willing to infect himself or herself with a deadly disease and then purposefully contaminate a planeload of people or public gathering, the difficulty of American homeland defense becomes a much more problematic matter.

Particularly if we're continuing to play the "Islam means peace," charade.

[SauronOfMordor]

exactly WHY was it "unimaginable" to fly airplanes into landmarks? The imaginations of novelists have been giving us stuff like this for thirty years, haven't they?

The Japanese kamikazi pilots were giving us the general idea back in 1945.

[SauronOfMordor]

Given that the terrorists all seem to come from one identifiable group (muslims born in the Middle East), one effective tactic would me to restrict such people from coming to the US

Alternately, we could identify those people who have been giving financial support to radical Islamic clerics, and for each American killed, assassinate an equal number of radical Islamic clerics and their financial supporters. Eventually, giving aid to radical Islam will be seen as a very unhealthy activity

[A Navy Vet]

In my not so humble nor gentile opinion, the best way to combat the Islamic terrorists is to make them BELIEVE they will not go to heaven. How is that done?...by using their faith against them. Scrap the political correctness b.s. and start killing them with munitions covered in pork lard, bury them with pork entrails stuffed in their mouths, and facing away from Mecca. Sorry if this bothers anyone, but this is war and niceties are no longer required. I would rather offend an entire religion than watch one more innocent American civilian or serviceman die.

[gcraig]

Right on. Let's roll!

[Prodigal Son]

Ummm... exactly WHY was it "unimaginable" to fly airplanes into landmarks? The imaginations of novelists have been giving us stuff like this for thirty years, haven't they?

I seem to recall that Klebald and Harris (Columbine) in their ultimate "end scenario" would have wanted to take hostages from the school to the airport- have a plane fly them to New York and at the last minute force the plane to crash into the city- possibly into the WTC. Oddly enough, when I was in 8th or 9th grade (20 yrs ago), I remember a kid sort of jokingly talking about coming to school with his deer rifle, shooting the principal and perhaps a few teachers and afterwards doing the same thing- hostages/airport/crash plane into tall Atlanta or perhaps even NYC buildings. "Go out with a bang" he said.

So I imagine if an American teen or two can contemplate doing that, so could terrorists and that notion has been out there in the public realm since Columbine at least.

[RJCogburn]

I'm with you on this, but I can easily imagine some high ranking Islamic authorities giving special dispensations that cover this tactic.

For example, Catholics are forgiven sins by saying an assigned number of prayers, Jews are given leave to ride on the Sabbath if the synagogue is too far.

I think the radical Islamic clerics will just change the rules to accommodate the desired ends.

[goldstategop]

This is what should worry our security experts. It'll be easy enough to protect hardened assets and infrastructure from suicide bombing attacks but the real challenge lies in protecting the civilian population or what I call "soft" or undefended targets. Even Israel hasn't been able to prevent civilians from being blown up every day. And if they can't stop it, its liable to lead to a chain reaction resulting in the meltdown of entire societies. Talk about living right on the edge of the Apocalypse.

[Prodigal Son]

I've thought of similar things. How about a crop duster loaded up with pig blood? Also some other off-the-wall ideas I've heard floated around the forum include:

• putting small mosques into the upper floors of skyscrapers in America and publicizing that fact (hoping to deter Muslim terrorists from destroying a mosque)
• Apparantly the words on the Saudi flag and certain transcripts from the Koran are too "sacred" to Muslims to destroy or defile (even if written on a piece of scrap paper)- so this could be developed into having scriptures from the Koran engraved upon buildings (could be hidden from view) in order to deter terrorists. (I personally wouldn't want to see that)
• Capture that meteorite in the mosque in Mecca, put it on a rocket and shoot it into outer space
• Secretly develop a staple grain (rice, wheat etc) with pig genes in it and sell it to Muslim nations over a long period of time and then make it public
• Offer $1,000,000 to Americans who would like to become suicidal "martyrs" for the USA and send them on devestating missions (suitcase nukes?)
• Koran toilet paper (we could use it extensively and make that fact well known)
• One I personally like is- bombing terror sponsoring nations at night (B52s, B2s Cruise Missiles) and then just don't claim responsibility ("it wasn't us Kofi, we'd never do a thing like that- must've been China or somebody- shrug shoulders innocently")

[RJCogburn]

Good ideas, but per my #10, I think they will just change the rules.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

Particularly if we're continuing to play the "Islam means peace," charade.

Now, now, Sabertooth! We don't want to impune the reputation of ALL if them. We only have to worry about a small percentage of them, the Wahabbi radicals. Estimated to only be 10% of all Muslims. Therefore only 100-125 million of them world over. Nothing to worry about.

Locked and loaded.

[glockmeister40]

"The best defense is a good offense". Let's start sprinkling some sh$t in their rice bowl and put them on the defensive.

Is it just too simple not to let any arabs into the US?

[Concentrate]

Ummm... exactly WHY was it "unimaginable" to fly airplanes into landmarks? The imaginations of novelists have been giving us stuff like this for thirty years, haven't they?

They're probably the ones who gave them the idea(s) in the first place, but there is little you can do about it, anyway.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

Alternately, we could identify those people who have been giving financial support to radical Islamic clerics, and for each American killed, assassinate an equal number of radical Islamic clerics and their financial supporters. Eventually, giving aid to radical Islam will be seen as a very unhealthy activity

Why wait for another American to be killed?

Iraq: Invade and conquer their country. Kill the radicals. Set up a democratic government.

Iran: Invade and conquer their country. Kill the radicals. Set up a democratic government.

Saudi Arabia: Invade and conquer their country. Kill the radicals. Set up a democratic government.

Repeat as necessary world wide until the radicals are annihilated.

[Concentrate]

Secretly develop a staple grain (rice, wheat etc) with pig genes in it and sell it to Muslim nations over a long period of time and then make it public

Good one!

[CyberAnt]

This is not new! If you go back and study WWII, you will find the Japanese pilots, known as Kamakazi, were doing the same thing in the 1940's. They would dive their planes into our ships - on purpose. Even when our gunners would shoot at them until they were torn apart or on fire, they would continue their appointed task and crash into a ship. Not all of them made it, but there were enough to cause a lot of damage.

They were an elite group of pilots who believed they were doing it for their Emperor (who was believed to be a god). They were trained to give up their life for the Emperor.

Now, please explain to me what's different about the current terrorists??