Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
CBRN
While IEDs and VBIEDs are clearly the weapons of choice for terrorists today, uncon-
ventional weapons cannot be discounted. Although terrorists have yet to successfully
conduct a mass-casualty CBRN attack, a number of instances illustrate that they have
a rudimentary framework for launching such attacks. Since chemical, biological, and
radiological materials tend to be inherently dangerous, the key to a successful attack is to
perfect the dispersal mode. In many CBRN attacks, terrorist groups have had difficulty
in accomplishing this feat, which is why conventional weapons are more dangerous.
Refining the Modes of Attack
As discussed previously, successful terrorist groups are learning organizations that
look for lessons learned not only in their own attacks but others as well, all looking
for that gold nugget that will bring success. In regards to Al-Qaeda, a key group ideo-
logue Abu Musab al-Suri wrote in his manifesto,
The Call to Global Islamic Resistance
,
of the need to learn from past mistakes to help the operational perspective in order to
devise a new perspective that he called
nazariyat al-'amal
, or “operative theories” for
future operations. It also used the
Al Battar
magazine, an Al-Qaeda in-house journal
that reiterated the lessons of the training camps for those who were there, and offered
a baseline to start for those jihadists who were not.
In 2008, before its switch to Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Al-Qaeda in
Yemen created its own magazine,
Sada al-Malahim
(
Echo of Battles
), followed now by
Inspire
, that discussed how to attack oil facilities properly. Prior to the attack on the
USS
Cole
, the attack cell targeted the USS
The Sullivans
with an explosives-laden skiff,
but the skiff was weighed down by too many pounds of explosives and sank. The plan
was refitted and reworked and was successful a few months later. As mentioned earlier,
the laboratories of Iraq and Afghanistan as well as Chechnya and elsewhere have given
Al-Qaeda and its affiliates room to work with and experiment in new ways of killing.
It is not just Al-Qaeda. The Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, found a way new method to
make his bombs more lethal by including ammonium nitrate and aluminum powder.
When Kaczynski admitted to the bomb placed at Northwestern University in
1979, he said, “he bomb used match-heads as an explosive. he bomb was in
a cigar box and was arranged to go off when the box was opened. I did it this
way instead of mailing the bomb to someone because an unexpected package
in the mail might arouse suspicion, especially since a short while before there
had been an incident in the news where cops in Alabama had been killed and
maimed by a bomb sent them in the mail.”
