HOW TERRORIST CELLS GROW "AT HOME"

Note: This is three essays published in one spot for archival purposes. Published because everyone seems to be asking "How do these home grown terrorsts form cells?"

PART ONE: A friend emailed me a rather confidential document that used huge words I had never heard of because they were military jargon. I have attempted a translation that all of us can understand. By the time all parts are on line, you will understand more clearly why we have failed to kill terrorism so far, and what we have to do to eliminate their food. Very Late Add: the original document is now posted by the Army War College. Badly written and filled with complex language. (Note: no longer published)

Here's how terrorism is working today. This is why the FBI and CIA failed to grasp the situation at first, the much maligned Tenant did understand it but by the time he did Congress refused to listen to him. I guarantee everyone that we will all come to realize that he was right, that our government as then structured, and is still structured, cannot stop terrorism cells because we have not understood exactly what they are, and that we are dealing with a headless blob. The terrorist "network" is composed of virus like cells and, like a virus, they just "appear" or emerge (called "emergence") with no seeming reason. They self organize, replicate themselves, get stronger each and every time they come in contact with another individual, split into more and more strains that cannot be slain the way the last cell was slain, and have no center. Bin Laden is no more than a figurehead, Zarkawi can be killed and it will make no difference. There is a way to deal with them but first we have to understand the actual nature of this beast. We have a virus.

Looking at Muslim terrorism through a relatively new lens called the Complexity Theory, a method of investigation and structure discovered in science for the study and elimination of viruses, passed through to business, and now being used by the U.S. Military, it is possible to see how this new terrorism "self-organizes" without organizing, gets stronger, stays strong , and changes (adapts) when attacked. Eliminating one or two cells has all the effect of popping a zit on the face of a teenager. Pop one and two more appear the next morning.

The five fundamental elements of self-organizing networks are adaptation, correlation (connected by complimentary relationship), coupling, aggregation (collecting new members from a similar cell) and self reproduction. As each agent is added the group gets stronger and will further evolve. Each agent within the group will change too because of the nature of this self organized blob and other self organized blobs.

In science we see that all viral strains are "self organized". They just "emerge" seemingly from nothing. Their elements of self-organization enable a complex network of viral cells (or terrorist cells) to spontaneously seek opportunities to spread and adapt in the face of adversity to form more virulent strains. Adaptation is spontaneous. Terror cells behave like viruses so that innovation emerges from the people within the cell rather than a single directing intelligence.

Hierarchical organizations (our government, military, business, and us) can never be as resilient as complex networks, because the power of complex networks resides not within its leadership or a few capabilities, but within its ability to spontaneously adapt to changes in the surrounding environment. We can see this on display right now in Iraq. We have seen it in the attacks on the USS Cole and the Twin Towers. We now defend our ships so no ships are attacked. We now defend our tall buildings so no tall buildings have been attacked, yet.

Late add on 8/29/06: The fucking New York times assures one and all that NSA wiretapping is dead as a tool, the cells probably shifted communication methods within a day.

The first step in the formation of a Terror Cell is called emergence. How did an ordinary friendship between Muhammad Atta and two other foreign students in Hamburg in the mid to later 90's result in the terrorist cells that pulled off 9/11? Although neither they nor the mosque they attended were known for extremist views, these students were nonetheless drawn together by their increasing disenchantment with the West in general and the US in particular. They met with other U.S. hating Muslim men in an ever-widening circle of acquaintances, which eventually led them to a German-Syrian named Muhammad Heydar Zammer (another virus floating around) who was active in Islamic extremist groups since 1980; this addition made them stronger. About this same time, the terrorists Ramzi Yousef and the Abu Saif group were planning to place timed explosives on passenger airliners bound for the US and use airliners as weapons to fly into the World Trade Center and the CIA headquarters. Yousef discussed his ideas with his uncle Khalid Shaihk Muhammad who was associated with al Qaeda. The ideas and concepts for a massive attack on the US using airliners were now emerging among various terrorist groups, and Muhammad Atif, a key associate of Osama bin Laden, studied the idea and discussed it with bin Laden. Note that the so-called mastermind did not think it up. Thinking the concept had merit, they communicated the idea (gleaned from others) and provided various resource contacts to several other associates around the globe including Khalid Shaihk Mohammad. About the same time in 1997, through a wide web of acquaintances, Mohammed met with Atta and Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker. Coupled with Muhammad and armed with this new idea and some financial and technical contacts, Atta and his associates emerged from a small group of disenchanted university students into a terrorist cell. In total, the plot expanded to include three cells of 19 hijackers with members originating from seven different countries. All but two of the hijackers had no previous associations with religious extremism or terrorist organizations. Tenet lamented that 17 of the 19 plotters were "absolutely clean" and all of us have trashed him without the understanding of "how it works." The 9/11 terrorist cell was not created or directed by a central node or hierarchical apparatus. Instead, the entities within the network were coupled together by loose informal associations forming "mutually dependant" interrelationships with an ever-widening group of like-minded Muslims. Simply stated, the 9/11 cells emerged from the bottom-up.

This is how these cells come into being. They simply emerge from a cesspool of mosques, colleges, and chance meetings. They meet with others and sometimes their similar hates unite them into a common purpose. They will find help from other cells and others will join. Each step of the way each cell becomes stronger as a result of contact or addition of others. Stress, failures, being attacked all cause changes within a cell (adaptability like a virus adapts to drugs) which also add strength They are not directed by a leadership. Their interrelationships create novel behavior, meaning group "A" will not behave like any other group and other groups will also be novel. The addition of each person also supplies additional energy (a dynamic) so that their purpose becomes more obsessive and focused. In other words 9/11 terrorists cells "emerged" from what seems like nothing into the terror cells of 9/11 from a bunch of guys from different places who thought alike and had the same goals. This is key. There was no central organization. It was "self organized" and was resilient. George Tenant realized this early on but nobody in Congress wants to listen to him because they are wedded to an outdated principal, that of the hierarchal structure like a pyramid, a nation state, an American business. Our government is now about to add to an ineffectual heirarchy by appointing a single intel Czar. Congress is posturing and fighting the last five wars as usual. So are you and I without knowing it.

Part Two: In part one I established that current terror groups are both independent and interdependent depending on when it suits them; that they seemingly emerge from "nothing"; that they gather strength from contact with other cells and individuals, and they adapt. This does not mean that every terrorist cell is doing the same thing. It simply means that when a cell needs some help it will find it somewhere among the other cells. This is why we call it a "terror network", and at times it certainly can be one.

The State Department reported that al Qaeda has coupled with at least twenty-eight other Islamic terrorist organizations centered in more than a dozen different countries forming a global aggregation of Islamic anti-American terrorism. Al Qaeda has long been established with terrorist groups worldwide including the Philippine based Abu Sayyaf, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, and the Indonesian Laskar Jihad. We in the USA see only the pyramid structure of al Qaeda as a possibility. Within these cells of the network the interrelationships between these groups constantly change. There is not now and never has been a leader.

While Tenant was routinely blasted by press, the 9-11 Commission, and politicians in general for his views, they are views shared by almost all intelligence services around the world. As one French intelligence analyst lamented, "if you have a good knowledge of the network today, it is not operational tomorrow". Another terrorist expert described the network as "a constantly changing virus that is impossible to totally grasp or destroy." A previous associate of bin Laden observed that al Qaeda was not as well organized or orchestrated as some would believe, but rather bin Laden directly controlled only a very small group around him, and outside of that were "tens of thousands who are sympathetic and arranged themselves in small groups in a very loose network." He further observed that these small groups and other terrorist organizations "didn't belong to him [bin Laden] like in a pyramidal type of structure." In other words even the bin Laden inner circle has told us how they work but our politicians and press don't want to believe it. Our government continues to "fight" the war using the hierarchal structure that has proven ineffective for the task.

Knocking out a single cell means nothing. Knocking out ten means nothing. If a drug kills a thousand virus cells in your body today we know there will be ten thousand more tomorrow morning that will be resistant to the drug that killed the thousand. Do you seriously think that the FBI will be able to pull another sting operation against a mosque as they did in Albany, New York? No chance. They have already adapted. That drug won't work a second time.

The elements of self-organization are also apparent in al Qaeda's financial apparatus. The Council on Foreign Relations report on terrorist financing concluded that al Qaeda is built upon layers of redundant, diverse and constantly changing financial sources that are incredibly difficult to identify and defeat. Money to support bin Laden's terrorist strategy comes from legitimate corporations, individual donations, charitable organizations, profit making terrorist front corporations and criminal enterprises to name but a few sources. Many individuals and corporations donate funds to Muslim charities unaware that funds are illicitly siphoned to support terrorist activities. Terrorist cells and agents are encouraged to seek financial independence and cultivate autonomous forms of income. Al Qaeda's sources of income spans the spectrum from tightly coupled al Qaeda front corporations to loosely coupled individual donors.

The elements of self-organization are probably most easily seen in the 9/11 plot. When the need preference of the Hamburg students intersected those of Bin Laden and other terrorist groups the process of aggregation (getting people from other cells) began. The need for resources and training coupled the hijackers to Khalid Shaihk Mohammad, which facilitated the aggregation process by enabling relationships with al Qaeda. The coupling with al Qaeda facilitated further meta- aggregation with various functional capabilities including financial, technical and training capabilities. These interdependencies exhibited a variety of tight, moderate and loose coupling. The agents within the Hamburg cell exhibited a high degree of tight coupling, as evidenced by the detailed planning and close coordination required to execute the highjackings. Emphasizing the close synchronization of the 9/11 attacks, George Tenet concluded this terrorist attack was unique in the high degree of professional and detailed coordination. The 9/11 attackers were only moderately coupled with bin Laden and al Qaeda. Although al Qaeda provided technical and logistical support, neither bin Laden nor his close associates directly controlled the operation from Afghanistan. Many within bin Laden's closest circle of associates were never made aware of the plot. The hijacker's innovation and adaptation in overcoming many challenges suggest they operated with a large degree of independence and were only moderately coupled with bin Laden. The hijacker's interaction with financial and training support demonstrated loose coupling. The sources of this support could and did change as required without consequence to the hijackers. The loose coupling ensured multi-way chains to complete their tasks. Although highly dependent on this support, the hijackers were not dependent on a single source. The cell was not directed by supporting agents or al Qaeda's leaders but rather enabled by them. Following the attacks of September 11, al Qaeda's capability was significantly degraded by attacks from the United States and its allies. However, Complexity Theory informs us that complex networks are resilient and will survive attacks on its constituent parts. And it not only survived but became stronger, changed appearances as well as tactics.

There is a seemingly endless supply of angry Muslims willing to become a part of a cell and go on the attack. All are motivated by the usual: U.S. get out of Saudi Arabia (now done), U.S. get out of Iraq, hatred of the Jews, hatred of the West and Western values, etc., etc. etc. The list of Muslim resentment at their "plight" can fill a book. The political structures of their countries add fuel to this fire since all are dictatorships of one kind or another.

Terrorist cells become weakest when they concentrate or mass as they have done in Iraq where U.S. forces slaughter hundreds each week. Once concentrated they run out of their food, meaning they can no longer reproduce themselves. They just get fatter as more and more young and untrained Muslims run to join them. The situation when viewed from the eyes of young Muslims is one of hopelessness for their futures as they watch the weekly slaughter continue. When operating in cells they still can drive a car loaded with explosives into a crowds, plant a roadside bomb, or send a kid with a backpack full of dynamite into a hotel.

Part Three: So far we have analogized terror cells with viral cells to explain the "emergence", gathering together individuals and people from other cells to make them stronger, the "networking" that helps hide them and make them fit, and how they can split into several cells for attack. All without leadership from outside the cell. We have seen that plans developed by one cell become the improved plans of other cells until one or three of them actually "does it."

So how can we win? People are not viruses. We think, we react, we are sorry or angry at losses. The "food" that continually fuels the "emergence" of cells are the millions of angry Muslim males ready to die. The Arab "Honor/Shame dialectic" and the two thousand year old tradition of the power/challenge dialectic (SAME LINKS) makes it nearly impossible to eliminate the ancient ways of gaining power. The term "dialectic" assumes that somewhere along the line of conflict a "synthesis" will happen (peace for a few minutes) and then the dialectic (struggle) will start all over again. The talk of "solution" which always revolves around removing the "causes" like Israeli-Palestinian peace, poverty, alternative choices for young men, democracy and blah blah blah, are ideas that just don't work over there.

We must not confuse terrorist cells with armed insurrections where "terrorists" mass into large groups. That is where we can kill them as we killed more than 300 in Sadr City and Najaf over the past few days. We can handle them by killing them in central locations. They gather so they can die with honor like Muslim men rather than live in the shame of (fill in the blanks). As this is written Saddr is currently employing a dialectic by attacking and then whining for peace and then attacking again replaying the millenniums old power-challenge dialectic. The solution to his imposed dialectic is to kill him. That is synthesis. Then you kill the next one. Finally they will get the picture. The Israelis have employed the tactic of killing every Hamas leader as he shows his head. The overall strategy is to cause inter power block warfare among Palestinians who in turn may tire of their own terrorism turned upon them. It appears to work, but keep in mind these are not cells but armies of insurgents massed together.

But what about the cells? Is it possible to weaken them by taking out the influential people in mosques, caves, and big city slums the world over? That is our strategy right now, but it is the nature of these things that leaders reproduce. Are we faced with active terror cells forever? Will they ever run out of martyrs? We can make it so dangerous that "living the life" becomes almost certain death advertised widely so that only the most obsessive and violent want to join. Short of change in the very guts of the Muslim religion I think that they will continue to plan and grow. Iran is more than willing to export all forms of terror as is Syria and many other regimes in the area. The elimination of these regimes can help, but only if replaced by representative governments. That work.

At least the analysis of cells and networks using the Complexity Theory brings it into a better focus and understanding for us. Knowing how they suddenly "emerge" from a group of friends joined in a feeling of hate, propagate, and launch attacks can help us all. Eventually they may have no more tools to use. I doubt that they can ever again use an airplane to attack. Until we find a way to find hidden explosives inside trucks and cars this tool will be used. I understand that the Israelis have a device that can spot roadside bombs so that this tactic may become obsolete. Once the implements of mass terror are removed the cells may become an anachronism. I think it is all we can hope for. Late Add: The arrests of big time terrorist "leaders" together will all their long term plans will have the effect of eliminating those long developing plans. Since they will have to be more secretive and have to act quicker on any plans they may have we have to assume that a major blow has been struck.