ISIS Strategy: Small-unit assault teams are the future of terrorist attacks

Paris shooting left 129 dead and more than 300 wounded with 89 in critical condition. (YouTube screenshot)

My heart and soul goes out to the people of France and all those that were killed and wounded in the horrific multiple terrorist attacks in Paris yesterday. After the sorrow, emerges anger and hatred against the terrorists. A small group of Islamic extremists succeeded in killing and or wounding a total of almost 500 innocent victims. They didn’t fly an aircraft into a building or take down a structure with explosives.

They did succeed in terrorizing an entire city, and completed their mission undetected until the final act. Instilling fear in the general population was their goal. The death and destruction was their means to that goal.

Small-unit terrorist assaults have occurred many times in the past. Most notable was the Nov. 21, 2008 attack in Mumbai India. Several small teams used small arms and improvised explosives and stormed two hotels. 166 persons were killed.

Thousands of supporters sympathetic to ISIS have traveled into the Middle East and have been trained in using small arms, improvised explosives and diversionary techniques and then let loose throughout the world to put into practice what they have learned. Those who feel they need to support ISIS and other terrorists’ organizations who don’t have the funds to travel overseas; no problem there.  You don’t have to travel overseas to get radicalized. All they have to do is sit down in front of their home computer, browse the Internet, read the propaganda from these terrorists’ groups and learn all they need to.

From how to conduct attacks, planning, acquisition of weapons, pre-surveillance of their targets, the chemicals needed to manufacture explosives and the building of improvised explosive devices, it is all there for them to see.

The media is reporting that the explosive that was used in the explosive belts by the terrorists in Paris was TATP, a high explosive that can be manufactured with over-the- counter materials in someone’s kitchen.

The Boston bombers were another example of a small-unit attack. In that case there were only two brothers and they succeeded in killing and maiming innocent civilians. They killed a police officer and used improvised explosives not only to kill and maim civilians, put to attack the police.

As with the attackers in Paris, the Boston bombers planned their attack under the radar from law enforcement. There was no intelligence of an impending attack. No chatter was intercepted, yet the attackers were successful in their mission.

The world stood by and watched ISIS grow from infancy with a few hundred followers to adolescence with thousands of followers and into adulthood with tens of thousands and beyond.

Albert Einstein said that we cannot solve the problems we face today at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.

Face the fact we are at war with radical Islamic extremists.

What is so frustrating is that we are led to believe that the combined armies of the civilized world cannot work together to destroy this small group of terrorists.

Some say what good would it do, if ISIS is destroyed another group will emerge to take its place. That may be true. But I look at it this way. When I was working undercover in narcotics enforcement some people would say to me what good are you doing, you take one dealer off the street and another one pops up to take his place.

Yes that was true but my answer was always the same and that was, at least the one I got will be off the street and the poison he was peddling would not be on the street to destroy lives. Same principle with terrorism and extremists.

Now we have countries allowing thousands of Syrian refugees to swarm into their borders without ever realizing that terrorists might be mingled into the masses as a means to enter a country undetected.

After Sept. 11, 2001 everybody was blaming everybody on how could such an attack have happened?  Why were there lapses in our intelligence network that allowed a small group of terrorists to carry out the largest terrorist attack on American soil?

Whether you agree or disagree with the “Patriot Act” something had to be done to make sure that such an attack would never happen again.

Over the years since 2001 there were those that stated that we were becoming a police state and that our rights were being slowly being compromised. I don’t see that. I still have my rights.  Those same persons were probably the same ones asking the question after 911, how could this have happened.

Benjamin Franklin, one of the signers of the Declaration of Indepedence, said those who want security over liberty deserve neither.  Ben Franklin was living in different times back then.  I wonder what he would say today if he were alive now.

Personally, I have no problem with law enforcement or the government conducting surveillance of anyone or any establishment if evidence exist that they are linked to terrorism.  And I don’t care if it’s a church, synagogue or mosque that needs to be surveilled.

If it is going to protect this country against another terrorist attack and the government or the police are conducting their investigations under the rule of law, their hands should not be tied behind their backs.

Vulnerabilities in our critical infrastructure will be exploited by a terrorist cell or a lone-wolf attacker.

It is just a matter of time before we have a major tragedy at one of these venues.

Sporting complexes, shopping malls, hotels and casinos are prime targets for such an attack.

These venues should have at the very least in their security force some armed security officers who are trained in how to react to an active shooter incident.

Better yet it should be mandated by law and also that they have to be on the property as long as the doors are open to the public.

As we have seen in Paris and other cities waiting for the arrival of the police no matter how expeditiously they respond, only adds to the amount of casualties that will occur, BEFORE the arrival of law enforcement.

“Nothing has happened so why should we worry about it,” or “we will worry about it when something happens.”

That is what I heard time and again when I was in the security profession in Las Vegas.

But waiting for something to happen before change occurs is not the job of a security director. Unfortunately it comes down to money and getting funding for a non-revenue producing department like security especially in the casino industry is a struggle many security directors have to endure.

Only until a tragedy occurs may things change.

I don’t want to see another dead American citizen laying on the ground because of another terror attack that occurred because we were unable to detect it.

I can never forget the pictures of those occupants of the Twin Towers that jumped or fell to their deaths to escape the smoke and flames, or the photo of the two unidentified people who jumped off the Tower holding each other’s hands as they fell to their deaths.

More than 20 cities in the United States have radical Islamic organizations. There are radical Islamic Imams preaching the killing of Christians and Jews in Mosques across this country. More than 300 million radical Islamists are in the world today.

What we need to understand is that we are not going to change the thinking of these radical Islamic extremists. They believe in a twisted perverted form of Islam that they have self-interpreted to fit their own agenda.

How do you change the mind of a person who straps on an explosive laden vest and blows himself up?

And before he hits the switch he raises his arms in the air so that his fingerprints will not be destroyed or places his identification in his shoes so that he can be identified and become a martyr.

If we are going to win this so called war on terrorism, then fight it with everything we have available.

The next time we send American troops to fight a war, have them fight a war the way it should be fought. Just as ruthless as the scum they are fighting.

And if an RPG happens to be fired from a Mosque, return fire and level the Mosque.

That’s how you send a message to terrorists.