“Dumb” Yet Deadly: Local Knowledge and Poor Tradecraft Among Islamist Militants in Britain and Spain

Abstract

Islamist militants frequently lack a talent for tradecraft. In recent attacks in Britain and Spain, terrorists made numerous mistakes: receiving traffic citations while traveling in “enemy” territory, acting suspiciously when questioned by the police, and traveling together during missions. Militants’ preference toward suicide operations restricts their ability to acquire practical experience, particularly when they lose their lives during attacks. And their unyielding devotion to their cause blinds them to opportunities to improve their operations. This is good news for counterterrorism officials. Terrorists’ poor tradecraft provides alert law enforcers with critical leads they can use to identify their attackers, unravel their plots, and—sometimes—disrupt their operations before they cause additional harm.

This article could not have been written without the generosity of dozens of interview respondents that shared their expertise with the author during his field work in Britain and Spain, which was supported by the U.S. National Institute of Justice. The author also thanks Benjamin Adelman, Martha Crenshaw, Graeme Herbert, Bruce Hoffman, Robert Lambert, John Mueller, John Picarelli, Robert Pape, Steven Peterson, and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on earlier drafts.

Notes

1. Fred Burton, “Beware of ‘Kramer’: Tradecraft and the New Jihadists,” Stratfor Weekly, 18 January 2006.

2. In this article the term “Islamist” refers to activists that seek to organize political and legal authority in the community according to Islamic law (Sharia). “Islamist militant” refers to Islamists that support armed struggles by Muslim fighters against non-Muslim forces, either to remove the latter from what they perceive as Muslim lands or to impose Sharia on resistant populations. “Islamist terrorist” refers to Islamist militants that are actively involved in the use of political violence against civilian noncombatants. For additional discussion of Islamism, see International Crisis Group, “Understanding Islamism,” Middle East/North Africa Report, no. 37 (2 March 2005); Mohammed Ayoob, The Many Faces of Political Islam (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2008); and David Cook, Understanding Jihad (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005).

3. Over the years, the leaders of al-Muhajiroun (the Emigrants) and its associated spin-offs, like the Savior Sect, al-Ghurabaa, Ahlus Sunnah wal Jamaah, and the recently banned Islam4UK, have called on their followers to establish Islamic rule in Britain and to support jihad, whether or not it has been sanctioned by an Islamic state. While al-Muhajiroun adopts a more expansive view of jihad than other Salafi and Islamist groups, its leaders reject the use of political violence against civilian non-combatants in England because they believe that they are beholden to a “covenant of security” that protects British citizens from such attacks. Author interview with former leader of al-Muhajiroun, London, 22 September 2007. For more on al-Muhajiroun, see Quintan Wiktorowicz, Radical Islam Rising: Muslim Extremism in the West (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005), p. 10, and Jamestown Foundation, “Al-Muhajiroun in the UK: an Interview with Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed.” Available at http://www.jamestown.org/news_details.php?news_id=38 (accessed 24 November 2007).

4. The author cites all his interviews anonymously in order to protect the privacy of his respondents and to maintain the human subjects research protections used in this research. He recognizes that this will prevent others from validating the reliability and accuracy of his interview data. He regrets this tradeoff as a necessary precaution in this research.

5. James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), pp. 313–315; and Marcel Detienne and Jean-Pierre Vernant, Cunning Intelligence in Greek Culture and Society, translated from the French by Janet Lloyd (Sussex, UK: The Harvester Press, 1978), pp. 20, 47–48.

6. However, during the 1990s members of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) carried out a series of bombings and assassinations in France. See Jeremy Shapiro and Bénédicte Suzan, “The French Experience of Counter-Terrorism,” Survival 45(1) (Spring 2003), pp. 67–98.

7. Examining “successful” attacks helps control, however imperfectly, for bias in collecting data from disrupted or foiled plots that receive extensive media coverage. Relying solely on well-reported failures for data skews the findings by oversampling attacks that feature incompetent perpetrators. To offset this bias, the comparative case sample used in this article includes “successful” operations by Islamist terrorists, such as the 9/11, 3/11, and 7/7 attacks. For discussion of the comparative case study method, see Alexander L. George and Andrew Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005); and Robert K. Yin, Case Study Research: Design and Methods, 4th edition (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2009).

8. For a similar theoretical discussion of techne and mētis, see Michael Kenney, “Beyond the Internet,” Terrorism and Political Violence 22(2) (2010). Examples from the growing body of research on terrorism training and “learning” include Brian A. Jackson, John C. Baker, Kim Cragin, John Parachini, Horacio R. Trujillo, and Peter Chalk, Aptitude for Destruction, Volume 2: Case Studies of Organizational Learning in Five Terrorist Groups (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2005); Michael Kenney, From Pablo to Osama: Trafficking and Terrorist Networks, Government Bureaucracies, and Competitive Adaptation (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007); James J.F. Forest, ed., Teaching Terror: Knowledge Transfer in the Terrorist World (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, May 2006); Petter Nesser, “How did Europe's Global Jihadis Obtain Training for their Militant Causes?,” Terrorism and Political Violence 20(2) (2008): pp. 234–256, and Jeffrey M. Bale, “Jihadist Cells and ‘I.E.D.’ Capabilities in Europe: Assessing the Present and Future Threat to the West,” unpublished report (Monterey, CA: Monterey Institute of International Studies, May 2009).

9. For discussion of tacit and explicit knowledge, see Ralph D. Stacey, Complex Responsive Processes in Organizations: Learning and Knowledge Creation (New York: Routledge, 2001); Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi, The Knowledge-Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); and Michael Polanyi, Knowing and Being, edited by Marjorie Grene (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969).

10. See Brian A. Jackson, Aptitude for Destruction, Volume 1: Organizational Learning in Terrorist Groups and Its Implications for Combating Terrorism (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2005), pp. 14–15.

11. Scott, Seeing Like a State, p. 320.

12. Ibid.

13. This, of course, assumes that the technical information contained in the manual is accurate, which is not always the case. See Anne Stenersen, “The Internet: A Virtual Training Camp?,” Terrorism and Political Violence 20(2) (2008), pp. 215–233; and Kenney, “Beyond the Internet.”

14. Burton, “Beware of ‘Kramer.’”

15. Ibid., and Kenney, From Pablo to Osama, pp. 144–145.

16. Scott, Seeing Like a State, p. 313.

17. For a fascinating analysis of mētis and techne, see Scott, Seeing Like a State, especially chapter 9; also see Detienne and Vernant, Cunning Intelligence in Greek Culture and Society; and Martha C. Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).

18. Author interview with former counterterrorism official, U.S. State Department, 13 August 2008.

19. This is not a novel insight. Nineteenth-century anarchists such as Johann Most understood the value of practicing with firearms and explosives. Writing in the 27 March 1886 edition of Die Freiheit, the anarchist journal he founded and edited, Most explains that “the actual possession of arms is only half the story; one must also know how to use them. It is easy to shoot, but appreciably more difficult to hit anything. Far too little credit has hitherto been given to the importance of this fact and not a few revolutionaries have already paid with their lives for having suddenly taken a shot at some representative of ‘law and order’ without first having made himself into a marksman. For it does take some while, with either a revolver or a rifle, to get the feel of a weapon. Each weapon has, as it were, its own particular characteristics, which need to be studied and respected. Using the first weapon that comes to hand, even the most expert marksman will not be able to score the success he can achieve with his own gun, which he knows backwards. The same applies to modern explosives, dynamite, etc.” John Most, “Advice for Terrorists,” reprinted in Walter Laqueur, ed., The Terrorism Reader: A Historical Anthology (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1978), p. 108.

20. Scott, Seeing Like a State, p. 320.

21. Author interview with Federal Bureau of Investigation official, U.S. Embassy, London, England, 29 October 2007.

22. Bruce Hoffman, “Radicalization and Subversion: Al Qaeda and the 7 July 2005 Bombings and the 2006 Airline Bombing Plot,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 32 (2009), p. 1102.

23. Testimony of Mohammed Junaid Babar, Operation Crevice trial, Central Criminal Court, London, 4 April 2006; Marc Sageman, The Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008): p. 128. Notes of Babar's testimony provided to author by Jason Burke, senior reporter, The Observer.

24. Testimony of Mohammed Junaid Babar.

25. Fred Burton, “London Bombings: OPSEC Errors or Intelligence Failure?” Stratfor Weekly (20 July 2005). Available at http://www.stratfor.com/london_bombings_opsec_errors_or_intelligence_failure (accessed 26 June 2008); Burton, “Beware of ‘Kramer.’”

26. For a fascinating discussion of Salameh's behavior and the ineptness of the 1993 WTC plot, see Mark S. Hamm, Terrorism as Crime: From Oklahama City to Al Qaeda and Beyond (New York: New York University Press, 2007), pp. 46–48.

27. Ibid., p. 80.

28. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2004), pp. 177–179; Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), pp. 297–298; Frontline, program no. 2004, “Trail of a Terrorist,” first broadcast on 25 October 2001, written and directed by Terence McKenna. Available at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/trail/etc/script.html (accessed 14 May 2009).

29. Hamm, Terrorism as Crime.

30. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Outline of the 9/11 Plot, Staff Statement No. 16. Available at http://www.9–11commission.gov/hearings/hearing12/staff_statement_16.pdf (accessed 16 June 2004), pp. 2, 4, 9; National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 155, 157; Wright, The Looming Tower, p. 309.

31. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 221–222.

32. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Outline of the 9/11 Plot, p. 5.

33. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 223.

34. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Outline of the 9/11 Plot, p. 7; National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 522, endnote 64.

35. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Outline of the 9/11 Plot, p. 10.

36. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 246.

37. United States of America v. Zacarias Moussaoui, United States District Court, Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, Grand Jury, Superceding Indictment (June 2002); United States of America v. Zacarias Moussaoui, United States District Court, Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, Grand Jury, Statement of Facts (22 April 2005); National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Outline of the 9/11 Plot, pp. 15–17; National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 246, 273, 540, endnote 90; Sean O’Neill and Daniel McGrory, The Suicide Factory: Abu Hamza and the Finsbury Park Mosque (London: HarperCollins, 2006), p. 222.

38. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 273.

39. Wright, The Looming Tower, p. 309.

40. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Outline of the 9/11 Plot, pp. 12–16.

41. 9/11 Public Discourse Project, Final Report on 9/11 Commission Recommendations (5 December 2005).

42. Burton, “Beware of ‘Kramer.’”

43. Michael Elliot, “The Shoe Bomber's World,” Time (16 February 2002). Available at http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,203478,00.html (accessed 8 August 2008); anonymous reviewer, personal communication, 19 January 2010.

44. Cathy Booth Thomas, “Courage in the Air,” Time (2 September 2002). Available at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1003224,00.html (accessed 21 May 2009).

45. United States of America v. Richard Colvin Reid, United States District Court, District of Massachusetts, Government's Sentencing Memorandum (17 January 2003); United States of America v. Richard Colvin Reid, United States District Court, District of Massachusetts, Criminal Complaint, “Affidavit of Margaret G. Cronin” (23 December 2001), pp. 3–4; Fred Burton and Scott Stewart, “The Heathrow Plot Trial: Retrospection and Implications,” Stratfor Weekly (9 April 2008). Available at http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/heathrow_plot_trial_retrospection_and_implications (accessed 26 June 2008); O’Neill and McGrory, The Suicide Factory, pp. 214–217, 226; Elliot, “The Shoe Bomber's World.”

46. Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, The Next Attack: The Failure of the War on Terror and a Strategy for Getting it Right (New York: Times Books, 2005), p. 11.

47. José María Irujo, El Agujero: España invadida por la yihad (Madrid: Aguilar, 2005), p. 287.

48. Manuel Marlasca and Luis Rendueles, Una historia del 11-M que no va a gustar a nadie (Madrid: Temas de Hoy, 2007), pp. 180, 182–183; Paloma D. Sostero, “Un guardia civil declara que multó a ‘El Chino’ cuando volvía de Asturias con explosivos,” El Mundo (24 April 2007). Available at http://w3.elmundo.es/elmundo/2007/04/23/espana/1177316962.html (accessed 23 July 2008); Retransmisión del Juicio por los atentados del 11 de marzo de 2004, “Declaración Testigo E-68411-L Guardia Civil.” Available at http://www.datadiar.tv/juicio11m/resumen230407.htm#E68411 (accessed 27 June 2008); Benjamin and Simon, The Next Attack, p. 11; Playing Chess with the Dead. Available at http://chesswithdead.blogspot.com/2007/04/trialday-28-april-23rd.html (accessed 6 June 2007).

49. Tetuán is a city in northern Morocco that was part of Spain's African empire until 1969, when the Spanish government returned it to Morocco. Al-Ándalus is an Arabic term that refers to the regions of the Iberian peninsula that were ruled by different Islamic caliphs for several hundred years, from approximately CE 711 to 1492. The capital of Al-Ándalus was Córdoba, then widely known as a center of Islamic learning and culture. Because of this history many contemporary Islamist militants believe that Al-Ándalus/Spain must be recaptured for Muslim rule. The quotation is from Indictment 20/2004, Committal for Trial (Auto de Procesamiento), Juzgado Central de Instrucción Número Seis, Audiencia Nacional, Madrid, signed by magistrate Juan del Olmo (10 April 2006), p. 251.

50. ABC, “Los agentes que multaron a ‘El Chino’ declaron que no hallaron motivos para detenerle” (16 April 2007). Available at http://www.abc.es/hemeroteca/historico-16–04-2007/abc/Nacional/los-agentes-que-multaron-a-el-chino-declaran-que-no-hallaron-motivos-para-detenerle_1632565652035.html (accessed 11 March 2009); ABC, “La Guardia Civil no detuvo a ‘El Chino’ a pesar de saber que robó ropa” (16 April 2007). Available at http://www.abc.es/hemeroteca/historico-16–04-2007/abc/Nacional/la-guardia-civil-no-detuvo-a-%27el-chino%27-a-pesar-de-saber-que-robo-ropa_1632559864764.html (accessed 11 March 2009); Retransmisión del Juicio por los atentados del 11 de marzo de 2004, “Declaración Testigo J-35844-R. Guardia Civil” (16 April 2007). Available at http://www.datadiar.tv/juicio11m/resumen160407.htm#J35844 (accessed 11 March 2009); Retransmisión del Juicio por los atentados del 11 de marzo de 2004, “Declaración Testigo L-03953-K. Guardia Civil,” (April 16, 2007). Available at http://www.datadiar.tv/juicio11m/resumen160407.htm#L03953 (accessed 11 March 2009); and Playing Chess with the Dead. Available at http://chesswithdead.blogspot.com/2007/04/trialday-25-april-16th.html (accessed 6 June 2007).

51. Marlasca and Rendueles, Una historia del 11-M que no va a gustar a nadie, p. 177.

52. Marlasca and Rendueles, Una historia del 11-M que no va a gustar a nadie, pp. 55–56, 75; El Mundo (1 March 2007), “La policía se centró en la pista islamista el 13-M cuando llegó a la tienda de Jamal Zougam.” Available at http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2007/03/01/espana/1172774314.html (accessed 23 July 2008); Javier Jordan, Fernando M. Mañas, and Nicole Horsburgh, “Strengths and Weaknesses of Grassroot Jihadist Networks: The Madrid Bombings,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 31(1) (2008), p. 32; Playing Chess with the Dead. Available at http://chesswithdead.blogspot.com/2007/03/trialday-9-march-1st.html (accessed 6 June 2007).

53. Paloma D. Sostero, “Una agente de Inteligencia detalla las incógnitas sin resolver en la investigación,” El Mundo, 3 July 2007. Available at http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2007/03/07/espana/1173241768.html (accessed 27 June 2008); Bale, “Jihadist Cells and ‘I.E.D.’ Capabilities in Europe,” p. 32.

54. Marlasca and Rendueles, Una historia del 11-M que no va a gustar a nadie, p. 34.

55. Hoffman, “Radicalization and Subversion,” p. 1102.

56. Personal communication with detective inspector, Counter-terrorism command, Metropolitan Police, London, England, 10 October 2008; Jason Bennetto, “July 7 Tube Bomber Argued with Cashier Shortly before Blast,” The Independent (31 October 2005). Available at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/july-7-tube-bomber-argued-with-cashier-shortly-before-blast-513288.html (accessed 7 January 2009).

57. British House of Commons, Home Office, Report of the Official Account of the Bombings in London on 7th July 2005 (11 May 2006), pp. 2–4; Burton, “London Bombings.”

58. As in the Madrid attacks, it is still not clear how the London bombers acquired the knowledge necessary to build their bombs, all of which detonated. The House of Commons investigation notes that the “know-how necessary could be obtained from open sources,” but adds that it's “more likely” the bombers received “advice from someone with previous experience given the careful handling required to ensure safety during the bomb making process and to get the manufacturing process right.” However, the Prime Minister's Intelligence and Security Commission report explains that “[o]rganic peroxide explosive is dangerous to manufacture because of its instability but it does not require a great deal of expertise and can be made using readily available materials and domestic equipment.” Ibid., p. 23; and Intelligence and Security Committee, Report into the London Terrorist Attacks on 7 July 2005 (May 2006), p. 11.

59. Report of the Official Account of the Bombings in London on 7th July 2005, pp. 2–4, 22; Intelligence and Security Committee, Could 7/7 Have Been Prevented?: Review of the Intelligence on the London Terrorist Attacks on 7 July 2005, report presented to Parliament by the Prime Minister by Command of Her Majesty (May 2009), pp. 15–16.

60. Burton, “Beware of ‘Kramer.’”

61. Author interview with counterterrorism analyst, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London, England, 24 July 2007.

62. Author interview with former counterterrorism official, U.S. State Department, 13 August 2008.

63. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 160.

64. Wright, The Looming Tower, pp. 307, 309.

65. Ibid., p. 309.

66. Intelligence and Security Committee, Could 7/7 Have Been Prevented?: Review of the Intelligence on the London Terrorist Attacks on 7 July 2005, report presented to Parliament by the Prime Minister by Command of Her Majesty (May 2009), p. 51.

67. Author interview with former counterterrorism official, U.S. State Department, 13 August 2008.

68. In separate studies, Bruce Hoffman and Brian Jackson both illustrate how IRA militants improved their detonation systems under pressure from British authorities. See Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism. Revised and expanded edition (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006): pp. 252–254; and Brian A. Jackson, “Provisional Irish Republican Army,” in Aptitude for Destruction, Volume 2: Case Studies of Organizational Learning in Five Terrorist Groups by Jackson et al. (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2005), pp. 93–140.

69. Author interview with former Metropolitan police official, Specialist Operations, 26 July 2007.

70. Marc Sageman, Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008).

71. Author interview with former head of al-Muhajiroun in the United Kingdom, London, England, 22 September 2007.

72. Ibid.

73. Author interview with American official, London, England, 24 October 2007.

74. Burton, “Beware of ‘Kramer.’”