THE NEXT ATTACKS ON AMERICA

Osama bin Laden offered a truce to America last month. This is an Islamic tradition prior to an attack. He coupled that offer with a threat of an impending attack. We should anticipate (To clarify: this is prudent and not predictive) that new attacks on US targets will occur soon. IF or when terrorists attack the US again, how will the attacks be accomplished? Which targets will be selected? When will it occur? There has been lots of speculation on these points. So far, this speculation has been useless, due to an inability to separate the probable from the possible. The key to knowing what is probable is found in a deep understanding how warfare is evolving. With this as a starting point, it is possible to discern the broad outlines of any future attack.

The Factors Framing the Next Attack

The timing, target, and nature of the next strategic attack on the US is shrouded in uncertainty. Its arrival will be a black swan -- an unexpected event that can't be anticipated with any degree of assurance. Despite this, there are some factors that will shape its arrival:

• The diminishing returns on symbolic terrorism (attacks on populations or national symbols). Read: "Terrorist Death-March" It details how the returns from terrorist attacks on symbolic targets diminishes unless the scale and scope is constantly increased.
• The organizational limitations of al Qaeda and other groups. Read: "The Optimal Size of a Terrorist Network." This brief provides insight into the limitations on terrorist group size due to the actions in Afghanistan and the GWOT.
• A shift in objectives towards economic coercion. Recent strategy statements from al Qaeda (always a good guide for future activity) and the experience of Iraqi guerrillas has moved the debate among prospective attackers towards attacks on systems rather than symbols.

A Crude Shape Emerges

Here's what we can discern from these factors:

• It's clear that given the organizational limitations of al Qaeda and other prospective attackers that the network that will make the next attack on the US will not be as large and complex as the one that carried out 9/11. This creates hard limits on what can be accomplished through symbolic terrorism -- since operationally complex operations like 9/11 or the use of WMDs are beyond the capabilities of any network that can be fielded (of course, when dealing with black swans, anything is possible).
• Any potential symbolic terrorist attack that is less impressive than 9/11 will be a devastating blow to the moral momentum of the attacker. The diminishing returns from symbolic terrorism dictate this.
• The combination of the above with a growing recognition of the value of economic coercion will drive the development of alternative plans. These new plans will likely be focused on systems disruption.

What this means

Here's a likely scenario: The networks used by the terrorists in any future strategic attacks on the US will be small, decentralized clusters. Many of the clusters, like what we saw in London and Madrid, will be homegrown and only loosely affiliated with external groups. Instead of symbolic targets, these groups will hit infrastructure networks. Much of the instruction and research passed to these groups will be done through the Internet. Unlike 9/11, these networks will have operational cell sizes of 2-3 members with only a remote support system. Since the tools and training necessary for infrastructure attacks are crude, the moral burden of these attacks can be meager (these attacks don't have to result in the deaths and dismemberment of random civilians), and the chance of capture is relatively small, the pool of potential participants is quite large.

Their operational method won't be focused on training for a single wasting attack but on repetitive attacks within a radius from a safe location. They will focus on systempunkts that provide them the opportunity for cascades of failure across multiple systems. Widespread blackouts, natural gas cut-offs, water shortages, and more. These infrastructure systems won't be attacked once but on multiple occasions and timed to coincide with repairs (which radically multiplies the impact on economic systems). The net result of this effort will be that each attacker will have the capability of inflicting hundreds of millions (if done correctly, billions) in economic damage to the US before they are neutralized (typical of the leverage we see in global guerrilla returns on investment).

The impact of these attacks, particularly if they are numerous (attracting copycats?) and spread out over an extended period of time will be severe. Given their lack of symbolic content (and the potential that they will be relatively anonymous), the moral benefit to US cohesion will be small. Initial outrage against the attackers will quickly turn against the government itself, with severe repercussions (particularly if the government's response is crude and deemed ineffective). Globally, these attacks will put at risk the US position as a safe haven for investment and may result in a large outflow of capital as the market's moral sentiment cracks.

Comments

[W. Zimmerman]

It seems to me that a far more reasonable conclusion from your analysis is that the U.S. will win the the strategic war against terrorism.

[tim fong]

Here's an actual infrastructure attack in Australia on a sewage system.

http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,108738,00.html?source=x10

[daCascadian]

A little conjecture

How do we know that the currently running events in the Islamic world (The CartoonWar ?) are not an example of one of the next form(s) ?

Not something started by the global guerrillas but used (fueled) by their network(s) once the initial spark was struck; as I recall, one of their stated purposes is to drive the western capitalist system into "bankruptcy"

So how much $$$ has Denmark/the EU "lo$t" due to this CartoonWar ?

I suspect it is a healthy amount (at least one dairy products corporation has ceased being able to do business in the area according to the MSMedia)

Why use resources to create when you can "piggy back" ?

Just some idle thinking on the spur of the moment sparked by reading your entry

"...the West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion...but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do." - Samuel P. Huntington

[John Robb]

As a student of war, I agree totally with the last point.

With Osama's offer of a truce in the air, we should all be thinking about the form of the next attack on the US. I am less concerned with the actual damage and more concerned with the "effects" it will cause.

[jim moore]

It seems to me that the most obvious target would be the petroleum refineries. Lots of explosive material, big economic impact, lots of people from the middle east have with experience with petroleum and it presents an opportunity to make a lot money through "insider" trading.

Houston, you have a problem.

[John Robb]

Jim and DC, you get it. Doesn't even have to be the refinery. It could be any one of dozens of subsystems, pipelines, power sources, etc. All work as a means of cascading failure. For example, taking out the oil fields in Saudi Arabia isn't done by attacking well defended oil extraction conduits but by disabling the water pumping system (injected into the fields) or the fragile electrical system (that powers the entire system).

Remember, the most successful part of the GG operation in Iraq is the systems disruption that feeds demand for black market power production (1 MW and growing) and gasoline. The way this ports to the international scene is to use futures/options and insider trading as a means to profit from the attacks. These feedback loops create their own "weather."

[wk]

If the terrorists have the stomach for it, there is really only one type of attack that provides maximmal effect with minimal input. In a word, Beslan.

[James Bowery]

With an attack on a power center like the WTC, there is at least the perception that the people killed are responsible for conditions the Islamics are reacting to. Targeting children as was done in Beslan is more akin a false flag operation and there was already enough speculation about that with the WTC.

The guerrilla school called the Iraq war is producing skills more in line with oil infrastructure disruption.

Something I could see happening is a synthesis of this and ecoterrorism as a means of inducing indigenous copycats and having confusion over who is responsible. Attacking oil refineries in a way that causes firestorms would work in a manner similar to some of the incedniary attacks in the LA area by ecoterrorists. Arabs are quite numerous in the area already so they can operate relatively anonymously and in numbers. Wait for a Santa Ana, torch some major LNG tanks in the Long Beach area and many small fires upwind.

However, unlike Dresden its likely the affected areas could be evacuated of population in time by simply travelling at right angles to the Santa Ana. The Long Beach area is, however the major Pacific Rim trade route bottleneck so it would shake confidence in the US by the major holders of US Treasuries.

[Mark Norman]

wk, I think you've identified one form of symbolic terrorism that is not subject to diminishing returns. Fortunately, it won't happen. Attacks on schools will significantly increase cohesion in the targetted country, and the terrorists won't want that.

[rob's reality check]

rob, what would it matter if WTC7 was a controlled demolition ? Nobody died, nobody cares about the building falling down, nobody has used it for propaganda purposes or leverage. In summary it's destruction resulted in no loss and no gain for anyone.

Meanwhile there is no conspiracy theory website that can in any way provide an alternate scenario which accounts for four groups of al Qaeda trained men simultaneously boarding flights which coincidently were each in turn were hijacked and crashed. This is why these details are ignored so that far less significant "coincidences" can be speculated about as though they even rate next to that one.

Stop reading fiction and mistaking it for non-fiction rob. It doesn't bother me that you look gullible, but I really am sick of this ridiculous crap invading every discussion on terrorism.

[notrob]

Regardless of all that, there's sinister shit going down right here in the US and it's not because of a bunch of rubes from Afghanistan (or SA).

Halliburton, Cheney's company, just got awarded a 385 million dollar contract for setting up concentration camps here in the US.

Will it be the next attack on america or the one after that that will result in martial law?

What does it take for you people to pull your heads out of your asses on this? Aren't you supposed to be the Freedom Party? Aren't you supposed to be the Tough Guy Party? But as soon as there's a little firecracker pop that wastes as many as die from a typical mudslide, you prostrate yourself before Der Fuherer and throw your (and our) civil liberties to the winds.

I often wonder who you people are.

[rob]

with all due respect,and I do think your anaylysis excellent on many points.
I just havve a problem with the official 911 story.Too many flaws and things that do not add up.
If one aspect of the offical yarn is a lie we have to ask ourseves why.
I visit your site every once and a while and just feel that your latest post is based on a false premise.

you asked.

what would it matter if WTC7 was a controlled demolition ?

to me it matters little.It does however indicate that weeks if not months of preperation took place to place the charges,,,the same must be true of the towers,,,all this would indicate that 911 was partially if not wholly an inside job and that the "war on terrior" is also a phoney one in the sense that the "enemy" is an Orwellian one.

The aircraft impacts were for dramatic effect and to indicate an enemy.The placed charges were to make sure the building all came down.

anyway.Thats all I have to say on the matter.

more evidence can be found here.

http://www.911truth.org/

http://fe.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section=OnlineArticles&SubSe ction=Display&PUBLICATION_ID=25&ARTICLE_ID=131225

best regards rob.

[rob's reality check]

",,,the same must be true of the towers,"

But you've seen the collapse of the towers a million times and they collapsed from the top down in a very uncontrolled manner, completely destroying surrounding buildings so you know this isn't true. In another amazing coincidence, this collapsing started right from the point of impact where those hijacked planes struck.

So in reality the reason "it must be true of the WTCs" is that this is required to make a connection that isn't there so a much more entertaining fiction version of events can be retold when the non-fiction version involving 3000 deaths wasn't catchy enough.
Stop posting this rubbish.

[rob]

your logic is flawed.

IF WTC7 was b"puuled as Larry Silverstein claims.Then the towers were also "pulled"

"I remember getting a call from the, er, fire department commander, telling me that they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, 'We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it.' And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse."

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/IMAGES/pullIt3.wmv

[controlleddemolition]

If you look at good video of the towers going down-- I have done this many times and from many video sources-- you can easily see explosions going off a number of floors down from the collapse area.

Furthermore, for three buildings to collapse like this would be the first time ever that skyscrapers collapsed by fire.

There are so many things that are fishy about 911-- ie no plane parts at the Pentagon site, impact zone inconsistent with plane impact and instead consistent with BROACH warhead impact, next to no debris at the Flight 93 crash site-- so, so many things.

When people deny that, I question their motivations.

Operation Northwoods offers a wonderful blueprint for the 911 attacks. Gulf of Tonkin incident represents historical precedent for bogus cassus belli.

[John Robb]

Please take the 9/11 was fake discussion offsite.

[jon]

I don't know what the next attack will be. I think the economic model is right, but I think the next attack will be carried out by Muslims that are American citizens. From AQ's point of view, prefereable if they were born in America. Even better would be to find some white, converts to Islam. So our law enforcement can't focus on the Muslim community. I think they want to limit our freedoms, as a way lessen confidence in the American government here and throughout the "Western" world.

[rob]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2023320890224991194&q=loose+change

[james]

Hang on. Do you have any proof that your claim is true? Has bin Laden, or anyone else in the Political Islam movement offered a truce prior to any other attack on the U.S. or elsewhere?

I don't recall any such instance. Please substantiate your claims.

[Adam]

John,

I do seem to be in the habit applauding you for your timing. No reason to change now I guess. I was halfway through this article that an excited colleague insisted I read 'there and then' when I got bored and wandered over to Global Guerillas. No reason I should be the only one to suffer.

http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2006/cr021506.htm

Granted, its only a Congressman, a Texan, and a Republican but he does seem rather concerned about economic attacks... (to help people move quickly through this article one interesting section starts: Greenspan, in his first speech after leaving the Fed)

It occurs to me that empires collapse due to money problems, not military ones. Logically it follows that going for the money flow would be the most effective attack on an empire. Certainly thats what caused the British empire to collapse, bankruptcy.

[jon]

They have offered numerous warnings. To Europe before either the Madrid or London bombings. To the US they didn't offer a truce, but they made warnings saying that their fight wasn't with the American people, but with the governement. However, we would be attacked because we still supported our government and they(the US gov't.) were still doing bad stuff. This was stated I believe more for his "home" audience than a world audience, to allow for the attacking of innocents, especially women and children, which is banned by the koran.

[james]

Jon, so this statement: "Osama bin Laden offered a truce to America last month. This is a religiously mandated action prior to an attack. We should anticipate that new attacks on US targets will occur soon." is just fanciful, isn't it?

If they haven't offered a "truce" in advance before, how can you be so sure?

Isn't part of their strategy to instill fear, even without attacking? Aren't you playing into their hands by predicting with such a degree of certainty a new attack?

[James Bowery]

Adam, ultimately it is military strength, not monetary strength, that decides the winner of a conflict. The Goths for example were warrior tribes that did not have much monetary strength but they did have zeal. The same can be said for the Vikings. What conquered them in turn was not money, which they happily plundered, but mythology. In the case of Islam it isn't clear Christianity can serve the same purpose and I'm not sure even Hollywood can. Islam is already a universalist religion and appears more likely to conquer the Hollywood than Hollywood conquer Islam.

The reason mythology is so crucial in these empire wars is it imbues a larger multiethnic mass with unified tribal identity and zeal -- something civil society can't do effectively with money and mercenaries.

[John Robb]

"... they are planning an attack soon on the United States,” said Richard Clarke, a former White House anti-terrorism chief. “Would he say that and risk being proved wrong, if he can’t pull it off in a month or so?” Clarke asked.

[Shloky]

James -

First - can the fragmentation of the nation state as a goal be seen as another empire war?

Second - Military strength is the primary means of winning a conflict but only after crippling the support (read economic) system. Strength can be created through resource allocation. The tired hydra metaphor comes to mind.

Third - I think you overstate the case for mythology. The State Failure 101 brief on this site explains it well at the macro level. Maslow and whatnot.

[James Bowery]

Shloky, the fragmentation of the nation state is the prerequisite for the civil society -- a multiethnic polyglot usually ruled by dynastic families, aka empire, that cannot demand of its soldiers anything but mercenary loyalty _unless_ there is some sort of mythic identity creating fictive kinship.

Econmics is a pretty broad topic. The Goths and Vikings again come to mind. The allodium of northern Eurpeans (later the Yeomen famers and still later the family farmers of the US) is a radically different paradigm than the highly urbanized civil society the US has become. Certainly the reallocation from allodium/yeoman/family farmer to military industrialization took place with great facility for WW II. However a generation later demographic collapse due to fertility drops and deindustrialization occurred under the new (sub)urbanized civil society. I may betray my Iowa heritage by saying this is like eating the seed corn. This as a more profound attack against the defensibilty of the US than any weapons of mass destruction could muster.

Finally the State Failure 101 article doesn't really address mythology per se. It is a mistake to see kinship as high up on the heirarchy of needs. Parents will sacrifice their lives for their children and the primary of mythology as I am discussing it is to hijack kinship circuits for the service of the empire so as to lower the military's costs.

[daCascadian]

Adam >"...Granted, its only a Congressman, a Texan, and a Republican but he does seem rather concerned about economic attacks... (to help people move quickly through this article one interesting section starts: Greenspan, in his first speech after leaving the Fed)..."

If you strip out the emotional words etc, he has the details correct

Iran will be opening their oil bourse in a little over 30 days (end of March) & it is a matter of record what he says about Iraq & the dollar/euro pricing

And about Osama...

One of the things that cost him credibility (within the strict Islamic community) after the 9/11 attacks was that he had NOT followed the accepted Islamic protocol for attacking an enemy because he failed to give the enemy proper warning & opportunity to respond

Now he HAS done so (as well as gotten the necessary fatwa(s) etc)

Make fun of the legalistic religion stuff if you like but note that there are LOTS of Islamic believers around the world that it is important to

Can you say cultural sensitivity ?

Pay attention to "the others`" mind set, NOT yours

The bottom line is that "the next one" will have far more support in the Islamic community than September 11, 2001 had

BET ON IT

"The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist thinks it will change; the realist adjusts the sails." - William Arthur Ward

[daCascadian]

As a follow on I`ll just note :

Both Iran & Syria have recently (last month or so) moved all their funds away from American institutions & dollar related assets so there can be no easy freeze of their external assets

Think maybe they see the world & its` future differently than most of the "accepted experts" ?

Hmmm, I wonder why...

"The wind blows over the surface of the lake. In this way, the effects of the invisible are made visible." - I Ching

[vox]

The kidnapping of Lindsay Lohan would be a nice combination of:

1. Pretty easy. The kidnapping, that is. Lindsay isn't exactly hard to get.

2. On the news all the time. America might actually want her back. Whereas if you go after Paris Hilton, you're gambling on how her family REALLY feels about her.

3. $$$$$.

I'll take kidnapping Lindsay Lohan for $1,000 Alex.

[Adam]

James,

"Islam is already a universalist religion and appears more likely to conquer the Hollywood than Hollywood conquer Islam."

On that note the latest movie in what was pro-American Turkey is:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4700154.stm

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/13871545.htm

Featuring, among other things, American troops acting like the Gary Busey as a Dr Mengele-like organ transplant hustler / doctor... I have to admit that, as an explanation for the US invasion of Iraq, enforced organ transplants hadn't actually been on my list.

There is an interesting issue here of course of propaganda. For many years US movies like Rules of Engagement justified the shooting of Muslims, today it seems that the Muslims might be justifying back. Personally I note that 3 years into the Iraq war there are no movies about why its right to fight, whilst 3 years into Vietnam we already had the wonderful propaganda movie The Green Berets (1968).

[John Robb]

Vox, Lindsay might actually join the kidnappers ala Patty H. LOL.

[Mark]

James, I would not dismiss Bin Laden's truce offer. It is significant in its religious dimensions, as William Lind observes (2/2/06) in his article about the odd twists or turns the War on Iraq may now take:
Osama bin Laden’s latest message. Most observers, including the White House, seem to have missed its significance. In it, bin Laden offered us a truce (an offer we should have accepted, if only to attempt to seize the moral high ground). The Koran requires Moslems to offer such a truce before they attack. The fact that bin Laden himself made the offer, after a long silence, suggests al Qaeda attaches high importance to it.
Why? My guess is because they plan a major new attack in the U.S. soon. I would be surprised if the plan were for something smaller than 9/11, because that could send the message that al Qaeda’s capabilities had diminished. Could this be "the big one," the suitcase nuke that most counter-terrorism experts expect somewhere, sometime? That would certainly justify, perhaps require, a truce offer from Osama himself. Of course, al Qaeda’s plan may fail, and it may be for an action less powerful than setting off a nuke on American soil. But the fact that Osama made a truce offer should have set off alarm bells in Washington. So far, from what I can see, it hasn’t.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/lind/lind87.html

As Paul Sperry has observed Bin Laden is a man of his word:
All told, 20 nations made bin Laden's hit list. … 19 nations hit out of 20 forewarned – a 95 percent correlation, making al-Qaeda at once the world's most effective terror network and the most predictable. … Bin Laden is a man of his word. Bush....
1/31/06 Paul Sperry

wk, Beslan--or wood frame churches, chain and padlocks for the doors, and gasoline that they could pyre up and drive away from.

[John Robb]

Beslan was a provocation, like 9/11. IT was meant to force retaliation in the hope of widening the conflict (aka superpower baiting):

http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2004/05/al_qaedas_grand.html

There's no need for this now. We are engaged. Yet another reason we will see a shift to the moral targets of systems disruption.

[Mark]

If I were a GG, and considered that the big 9/11 provocation cost the USA one or two trillion in the long run, and saw the USA working itself up to hit on Iran, then wouldn't a Beslan or series of Beslans be an inexpensive way to push the USA over the edge. Especially if it ignied a splendid fusion of unity and anger in the USA. if I were a GG flea and the USA started beating on Iran with a nuclear hammer out of sheer rage and frustration, then I'd get a splendid return on my investment--no?

[Mark]

No sooner turned to antiwar.com, than there was another article on the same theme:
BIN LADEN'S GAME
By Steve Perry interviewing Michael Scheuer

http://citypages.com/databank/27/1315/article14125.asp

He specifically addresses the point raised above by daCascadian that now Bin Laden has given us fair warning, has offered us a chance to repent, and has received a religious judgment that killing us is ok--three things he was criticized on the Arab street for not doing before the 9/11 attacks.

He also testifies to the Bin Laden is a man of his word meme: "And one of the things I've tried to point out when I've been interviewed is that, objectively, if you examine bin Laden's rhetoric, the correlation between words and deeds is pretty much—close to perfect."

[RKB]

So apparentally Bin Laden's truce is based on something called the عمدت السلك (Reliance of the Traveller), which is a Sunni manual of law. Offering a truce is okay if you've been weakened, which shows that the terrorist networks have taken a beating so far/.
An analogy given by a smart person on another forum - the Borg from Star Trek always try to get new people to assimilate voluntarily, rather than going in guns blazing. Although Islamists do not have to, it is traditional - which is what Bin Laden is trying to make his appeal towards, tradition.ع

[John Robb]

That's well reasoned. Thanks. I've updated it.

[enigma_foundry]

From Robb's intro:

"Here's a likely scenario: The networks used by the terrorists in any future strategic attacks on the US will be small, decentralized clusters......Instead of symbolic targets, these groups will hit infrastructure networks. Much of the instruction and research passed to these groups will be done through the Internet. Unlike 9/11, these networks will have operational cell sizes of 2-3 members with only a remote support system."

Ok I agree with all that. A biological weapon attack meets this criteria quite well.

"Since the tools and training necessary for infrastructure attacks are crude, the moral burden of these attacks is meager (these attacks don't result in the deaths and dismemberment of random civilians), and the chance of capture is relatively small, the pool of potential participants is quite large."

Partly agree and partly disagree. One thing that will happen with the next large attack, which I believe will be biological warfare, is that it won't leave any fingerprints. It will only be our suspicion that a new neuro-degenerative disease that manifests itself a year after the intial upper GI infection was carried out by Islamic terrorists. The Islamic world will not accept this conclusion, rightly noting that it is speculation and there exists no hard proof.

The measure of the success of the attackers is the difference (the delta) between the accepted "facts" in America and that of the Islamic world. America wil perhaps react violently to this attack, but that reaction will only serve to isolate America from the rest of the world.

The terrorist will have attacked the network of geo-political co-operation among the West, severing America from it's traditional allies.

The economic network will also be crippled, with many sectors such as travel, tourism and retail never again approaching their pre-attack numbers.

The stage will be set for populist power seekers in America, who will do nearly as much damage to America as the terrorists did.

The goal of al-Qaida includes shifting the American political spectrum to the right, destroying America's position in the moral network of Western civilization, a postition held since the 1790's and only lost as an outcome of this attack.

[enigma_foundry]

"If I were a GG, and considered that the big 9/11 provocation cost the USA one or two trillion in the long run, and saw the USA working itself up to hit on Iran, then wouldn't a Beslan or series of Beslans be an inexpensive way to push the USA over the edge..."

If a beslan type attack occurs and can be traced to Al-Qaida or Islamic terrorist networks, it is a sign they are really slipping and perhaps cannot execute the kind of attack they need to stay in the game.

The moral burden is too high, and the cohesive effect in the US is way to high. Such an attack would, in my view show they are on the ropes and are disparate.

The correctly executed biological attack, has no moral burden--we won't even realize it happened until a year or so has gone by--our present symdromic survaillence and random sequencing of viruses found in the wild are way too spotty to have any hope of catching anything that is really smart before it is really really big.

So I see worst case is attack already underway--but we don't know it yet. Also possible it's been spreading in an animal vector for somee time....

[TM Lutas]

Attacks done by loosely affiliated groups are very likely to vary because there is no control. It could be 10 two person assassination teams replicating the sniper crisis of awhile back (very cheap, very effective, and you can do it over and over). It could be chemterrorism (castor beans are native US plants and ricin isn't *that* hard to make once you get the recipe). It could be any number of infrastructure attacks that could range from inconveniencing industry to killing people indirectly via an infrastructure attack.

I would expect that the early warning signs are going to be a number of infrastructure attack failures. It's highly unlikely that the first strike will be a big success. 9/11 wasn't the first try at flying a plane into a symbolic target. That honor belongs to the French who had an attempt on the Eiffel Tower several years earlier.

Where are the early tries, the failed attempts at infrastructure attacks?

[C'est Moi]

I think it's most likely going to be a mix. For example, a commando team taking out a Hollywood awards banquet (executed by the French branch of AQ :-) that sets off a chain of events such as a small aircraft being flown into the CFTC and some sniper teams terrorizing suburbs of major metro areas. The only (very, very small) chance I see of CBW is if AQ managed to buy something nasty off the ex-USSR black market.

[Cardenio]

What I've been afraid of, and fits the bill here, is " Beltway Snipers Part II "

I was afraid that while that was happening it was a new ' offical ' Al-Qaeda tactic and that it would be emulated all over by other detached clumps.

Since they've seen how effective that was, they might try and simulate ' drive aroud and shoot people at random ' in different places inside the US, if they can get anyone to do it and get them the guns ( Uncle Osama has sent you this nice supressed .50 rifle - and some money - now go shoot for Allah )

That could be pretty bad and hard to deal with. Remember Asshole 1 and Asshole 2 had paralysed the whole Beltway there, just two guys and one gun and one car.

I'm from San Francisco and I remember the " Zebra Murders " which was essentially the same thing. Kind of " Al-qaeda " part one, Muslamic fucks driving around shooting people at random. If they can find people to crew that shit, well, we've got a problem. It's cheap, disconected, and real effective.

[Shloky]

What about the potential for e-jihad?

We seem to be focusing on attacks targeting hard infrastructure.

[KM]

The conjecture regarding a the next attack seems predicated on a rational and proportionate response by US. If UBL is as rational and calculating as most analyst argue, wouldn't a WMD attack be a suboptimal strategy? Any WMD attack would quickly galavanize public calls for massive and unadulturated reprisal - i.e. erasing a susbtantial percentage of the enemy population - regardless of their loyalty. I think Scheuer has been advocating this strategy actually. Seems any potential action could be met by the US with a disproportionate/devastating response. There is a game strategy analogy here somewhere...

[enigma_foundry]

"Where are the early tries, the failed attempts at infrastructure attacks?"

That's one of the big pluses of biological attacks--the failures would very likely never even be seen--they will just keep trying until they get it right.

[enigma_foundry]

"The conjecture regarding a the next attack seems predicated on a rational and proportionate response by US. If UBL is as rational and calculating as most analyst argue, wouldn't a WMD attack be a suboptimal strategy?"

No, the correctly executed biological attack--not leaving any fingerprints--could even be indistinguishable from the emergence of a new emerging infectious disease, requiring extremely sophisticated genetic analysis to determine the transgenic nature of the pathogen.

Part of the terrorists calculation is to create a massive difference between the public opinion in the West, particularly the USA, and Islamic countries on the fact of whether or not a terrorist attack has even occurred.

The strength of their victory could be measured by the difference created in public opinion in USA and the rest of the world. Remember that people persistently believe things that fit with their world view. The difference in opinion surrounding this “Information Bomb” (Read Paul Virilio here) will be the center of the battle.

Recall Churchill: "The next war will be fought only peripherally in the battlefield--the real war will occur in the minds of men"

If USA uses WMD as reprisal, the fog immediately gets very thick, and the first thing lost in it will be the locations of Pakistani nuclear arsenal. New ball game after that.

Additionally the USA would be profoundly disconnected from its traditional allies—a major goal here is to isolate the USA. Once that is achieved, the war could actually be lost.

[Matt Shultz]

Does AQ possess the expertise necessary to field a proper biological attack? I know the cost for genetic engineering equipment has been coming down quite rapidly, but it still requires a certain level of skill to pull off.

That said, a possibility I'd raise would be a biological attack on agriculture. Release a virus that devastates the productivity of the heartland. The economic impact of such an attack might not be so bad - agriculture accounting for a relatively small part of GDP - but the symbolic effect could be greater than 9/11 (though they would have to take credit to get the symbolic benefits.)

If they go for a systempunkt - like an attack on oil infrastructure - I wonder if this might not lead to a formal alliance between Islamists and EarthFirst! types. Both groups hate modern civilization, both would at this point have essentially the same targets, and they could likely achieve far more together than separately. Just a thought.

[wk]

I wonder if this recent news story is an indication of official DHS concern about a Beslan-type threat. If so, and if they have any solid info, I certainly hope they will share it with the public in a timely manner.

Enlisting School Bus Drivers to Keep an Eye Out for Terrorists:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/national/nationalspecial3/19bus.html

[Charles Roten]

”Does AQ possess the expertise necessary to field a proper biological attack? I know the cost for genetic engineering equipment has been coming down quite rapidly, but it still requires a certain level of skill to pull off.”

I think enigma_foundry has been speculating in a knowledge vacuum.

The sort of agent he describes is the kind of thing we might reasonably expect to see under development if the Soviet Union hadn't collapsed. With the consequent closure of Biopreparat's offensive functions by Boris Yeltsin on 11 April, 1992.

But Biopreparat had more than 60,000 people in its employ, spread out over more than 100 facilities all over the USSR. It had steady serious funding and support from a state actor. It had fixed secure facilities.

AQ has none of these things.

I should point out at this stage that Aum Shinrikyo had a warchest of 1.4 billion dollars, and access to real scientists and first-rate lab facilities.

They ended up abandoning the biological angle entirely, and settled for a rather poorly implemented sarin attack.

If they had got their ducks in a row, that Tokyo subway station would have been wall-to-wall bodies. In the event, they didn't even try for an aerosol.

What does this imply about the “ease” of developing non-nuclear WMDs by non-state actors?

If AQ were going to opt for a biological attack, and if they were set up for it, which I very strongly doubt, they would have opted for an anthrax strike delivered by classical means.

They would have used an aerosol of properly weaponized agent, competently dispersed over a very wide urban area, into the multiple if not multiple tens of square miles.

I'm basing my assessment of the probable choice of agent on statements that everybody thoroughly conversant with the issues, from Ken Alibek on, has been saying for the last half dozen years.

And AQ would have done this years ago.

What we've actually seen from AQ is bombings and airline hijackings. Both are methods straight out of the classical terrorist playbook.

We can expect them to think outside the box. 9/11 was the use of hijacked aircraft to achieve a result that conventional bombing had failed to achieve.

In view of this last, I see John Robb's notion of distributed attacks on systempunkts by more or less conventional means as entirely reasonable. MUCH more reasonable than worry about biologicals I really doubt if AQ has either the infrastructure or the intent to develop at this point.

Besides which, there is the very real possibility that we could be in receipt of a biological attack of immense magnitude in the near to intermediate term anyway. From a terrorist with a record far far longer than AQ's, by some hundreds of thousands of years.

[dan]

Charles:

I wouldn't discount AQ's capacity for a biological attack. Test kits for salmonella, botulism, listeria are fairly easy to obtain, and a patient, competent microbiologist would be able to locate the agent from the food supply as is, and then culture a fair quantity without too much trouble.

Distribution via the loosely-regulated, high employee turnover fast-food chain - spike the ketchup/mayo/salad.

It's not spectacular or highly lethal, but it might well be effective.