Inspire 3 “Operation Hemorrhage” Analysis

Al-Malahem came out with their “special” edition covering their recent parcel bomb attack on the West yesterday and it was a smug piece of propaganda that they try to gloat with. I am guessing they really need to get it out there that they had a “win” in their check-box over this failed scheme to bomb planes over the US because they are steadily losing momentum on a larger scale. However, some of what they do say in the piece does have bearing on what has been happening in the US regarding TSA security and the “theater” that they have in place instead of real security measures and about the United States financial expenditures to make us all “feel safe” These are both things that I have touched upon many times in this blog and will line up with AQAP’s strategies now.

“Operation Hemorrhage” boasts the writers, cost only a mere $4,200.00 and the kinetic damage through fear and spending will be billions in their estimates. Thus they are only bleeding the US economy further with each attack whether successful or not. Their assessment on this is somewhat true especially given the fact that for every move there is also a counter move within the game of mental chess here on security measures. Of course, the problem has been within the US’s approach vis a vis creating the behemoth of the TSA, that there are way too many cooks and the soup is not only spoiled, but it is cold and congealed in the pot because of all of the legal, political, and infighting problems that come along with creating a government entity. Add to this that the TSA has been poorly executing security measures to begin with, then you have a problem of complete ossification of an organization that is supposed to be nimble and smart.

Instead of nimble and smart, we have had one debacle after another leading up to the current issue of invasive pat-downs and backscatter scans that are trying to prevent the last attack’s M.O. all the while the enemy has moved on to a new vector of attack. The writers of this issue make sure to re-enforce that idea:

If your opponent covers his right cheek, slap him on his left. Since9-11 the West has been stepping up defenses for its commercial aircrafts. The continuous attempts that followed 9-11 by our brother Richard Reid, the Heathrow airport plot and finally the operation of brother Umar Farouk have forced the West to spend billions of dollars to defend its airplanes. But what about cargo planes? The air freight is a multi-billion dollar industry. FedEx alone flies a fleet of 600 aircrafts and ships an average of four million packages per day. It is a huge worldwide industry. For the trade between North America and Europe air cargo is indispensable and to be able to force the West to install stringent security measures sufficient enough to stop our explosive devices would add a heavy economic burden to an already faltering economy. We knew that cargo planes are staffed by only a pilot and a co-pilot so our objective was not to cause maximum casualties but to cause maximum losses to the American economy. That is also the reason why we singled outthe two U.S. air freight companies: FedEx and UPS for our dual operation.In our discussions prior to the operation we set the passage of explosive devices from any airport as a bench-mark of success. For us, blowing up the planes would have made us very pleased but according to our planand specified objectives it was only a plus. The first package made it successfully and brought down the UPS flight in Dubai. The experiment was a brilliant success. In our following operation we used a different explosive package and determined that if both packages passed throughthe inspection at the FedEx and UPS facilities and passed through the X-Ray systems at the airport, that would raise a worldwide alert that would force upon the West two choices: You either spend billions of dollars to inspect each and every package in the world or you do nothing and we keep trying again. The packages not only made it out of Sana’a but one of them made it all the way to London and if it was not for an intelligence tip, both devices would have detonated. After the operation of brother UmarFarouk we have been experimenting with ways to bring down airplanes.We have researched the various se-curity systems employed by airports. We looked into X-Ray scanners, full body scanners, sniffing dogs andother aspects of security. The result-ing bomb was a device that we were confident that, with the will of Allah, it would pass through the most strin-gent and up-to-date security equipment.We were right. The packages were inspected at the FedEx office (the deliverer reported to us that therewas no checking at the UPS), they passed through the X-Ray machines at Sana’a airport, and went through the other procedures required by cargo companies. Both devices were not detected.We are fighting a war against American tyranny. This is a new Crusade waged by the West against Islam. Therefore we wanted to put things into proper perspective. This current battle fought by the West is not an isolated battle but is a continuation of a long history of aggression by the West against the Muslim world. In order to revive and bring back this his-tory we listed the names of Reynald Krak and Diego Diaz as the recipientsof the packages. We got the former name from Reynald de Chatillon, the lord of Krak des Chevaliers who was one of the worst and most treacherous of the Crusade’s leaders. He fell into captivity and Salahuddeen personally beheaded him. The name we used for the second package was derived from that of Don Diego Deza,the Inquisitor General of the Spanish Inquisition after the fall of Granada who along with the Spanish mon-archy supervised the extermination and expulsion of the Muslim pres-ence on the Iberian Peninsula employing the most horrific methods oftorture and done in the name of Godand the Church. Today we are facing a coalition of Crusaders and Zionists and we in al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula will never forget Palestine. How can we forget it when our motto is: “Here we start and in al-Aqsa we meet”? So we listed the address ofthe “Congregation Or Chadash”, a Gay and Lesbian synagogue on our one of our packages. The secondpackage was sent to “Congregation B’nai Zion”. Both synagogues are in Chicago, Obama’s city.We were very optimistic about the outcome of this operation. That is why we dropped into one of the boxes a novel titled, Great Expectations.

Another thrust that the AQAP have here is that they are using the Crusades as an aegis for all of these operations and perpetuating the idea that they today still fight a Crusade against a marauder west invading their lands… It seem’s that they just can’t give up that motif as a romantic illusion to bring in new recruits and keep the old ones I guess. Of course what they fail to elucidate is that even Salahudeen was able to come to the table in the end and make peace with the infidel… But I digress now into histrionics, and that is not what we need here.

What is telling in this document is that they are laying their strategy cards on the table here; For every countermeasure you come up with, we will find your weakness and exploit it. This is something that the TSA and the authorities seem to be missing the boat on in their ineptitude and ossification. They go about this not with agility and nimble thought, but instead they throw money at the problem and rely on technologies that will “save the day” Well, this has not worked out so well has it? The fact of the matter is that for all the machinations by this nation to protect itself since 9/11, they only recently began to seriously look at x-raying/scanning all of the baggage and cargo that goes into the belly of a plane… 10 years hence and they still have not done the basic due diligence of securing the choke points.

Don’t even get me going on the ports in this country either.. You want to see a debacle, check out port security.. It’s a nightmare. If they were serious about using a nuke or a dirty bomb, that’s where they would easily be able to get one in..

Just one cargo container on a ship…

But I digress again…

So, back to the problem of airport and air transport security. Once again, the AQAP have amped up the situation and shown that we are not indeed safe. The fact of the matter is that we never will be “completely” safe and I think now, the US public at large has begun to suss this out. Once the TSA began the “naked scans” and the enhanced pat downs, they really began to see just how much theater there is being put out there by the government ala the TSA and not so much real “security” The backlash against these measures has pretty much shown that the US public is not willing to be strip searched every time they take a flight to see grandma or to go to work each week. Finally, the US public at large has grown up in a sense to the vagaries of life in an age of terrorism. There is no 100% security model and there are limits to what we should give up to fear and incompetence.

Meanwhile, the government plods on with the TSA in the lead playing the “man behind the curtain”, pulling the chords on the immense security apparatus that is mostly smoke and mirrors. In short, the AQAP are winning some battles here and have the government spending money like water for measures that in the end. have little bearing on stopping a concerted attacker. It’s sad really.

So, what do we do? Here are my thoughts:

• Train the TSA workers properly in counterintelligence and profiling
• Institute an Israeli model of security at airports with choke points where the travelers are profiled by simple questions and trained observers
• Use the usual x-ray and magnetometers at the gate choke points
• Use sniffer machines as well as dogs on higher risk individuals
• For those who have been selected by the trained observers, use the pat downs and the backscatter machines
• Test ALL cargo going into the belly of planes. Anything with circuit boards should be given special scrutiny

What I am advocating is overall, a smarter approach to security than what we have been getting since 9/11. We also need a government and a security agency with a backbone and more culpability when they screw up. Moreover, an agency that is willing to admit when they screw up (I remember that TSA manual incident don’t you? Napolitano LIED to congress about that and was called on it) It’s time to be adults here. These are serious issues and we certainly do not need the keystone cops in place instead of Scotland Yard.

In closing I would just like to say that we are being gamed here. Gamed by AQAP and gamed by politicians trying to make you “feel safe” in hopes of staying in office. I feel truly, if we were serious about security in this country, whether it be information security, technical computer security, or security against terrorism, we would be doing things much more effectively to actually “secure” the nation. There is a lot of lip service out there but I see all too many incidences of it just being lip service and little action. I also am afraid, that I see things going down the path of security becoming not only the nanny state, but also the “dear father” state. This is what scares me the most of late.

The detentions of hackers in airports demanding their hardware and their keys is a chilling thing. Mind you, these are people I know in some cases and I feel are being harassed because of affiliations or as byproducts of technologies they work on. Increasingly, the federal government has been  still gathering powers of surveillance without checks and balances that would make the Nixon team cream in their pants with desire. In the wrong hands and without the checks and balances, we have the great potential for abuse.

Now put it together… TSA is under DHS. DHS now has Secret Service and other security orgs under its umbrella. Given the track record of DHS, does this give you any warm and fuzzy that they have these powers? Now look at the numbers of how many arrests their have been of terrorists..  I am not seeing a good trend here.

Time for a re-structure.

CoB