Proliferation and Terrorism: Big Hype or Biggest Threat?

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1 Proliferation and Terrorism: Big Hype or Biggest Threat? By Rolf Mowatt-Larssen During my tour of duty for the CIA in the early 1990 s, I received a senior officer from Washington on a mission to collect an important piece of evidence to help identify the culprits behind the bombing of Pan Am 103. As we sat in a restaurant sipping a glass of wine, "Mike," a veteran counterterrorist hand, enumerated the reasons why the investigation was among the highest priorities for CIA Headquarters. Mike s eyes narrowed, as he recalled that the attack had killed one of our own. Terrorism is a deeply personal business," he sighed. "It'll be around as long as there are people with scores to settle. Terrorists embarrass politicians. They are always painful for the victims and their families. But terrorism isn't a strategic problem. It won t affect our way of life. And it isn't a threat to our national security." Perhaps that was true at the time, at least for the US. However, Al Qaeda took the fight to US soil in order to change the perception that they could not threaten our very existence. The 9/11 attacks shook the aura of US invincibility in the minds of many, conjuring up the image of an enemy knocking at the gates, and giving hope to Islamic militant extremists that a global jihad could one day topple the new Rome. Throughout the 1990s, al Qaeda sought to provoke the United States into a war that would ultimately lead to the withdrawal of US military forces from the Islamic world. Islamic militants consider the elimination of American presence in the broader Middle East as a precondition to overthrowing so-called apostate regimes and bringing about Islamic fundamentalist rule. To this end, they launched an attack in 1993 to bring down the World Trade Center but the attack was unsuccessful. Undaunted, al Qaeda launched attacks on two US Embassies in East Africa in This attack also misfired, killing scores of innocent Muslim bystanders, and failing to incite the US to war. So the group upped the ante in 2000 by attacking a US warship at port in Yemen. Once again, al Qaeda missed its mark. The USS Cole did not sink, and the sleeping US giant did not rise. With history on his mind, Osama bin Ladin made a momentous decision to strike multiple strategic targets on US soil. He concluded that only an attack of this magnitude could disrupt the status quo and spark an invasion of Afghanistan that he felt would surely lead to military defeat and demise of the United States as an empire - just as the Soviet Union had crumbled in Afghanistan. No doubt, terrorists have been surprised by subsequent events. The effectiveness and sustained nature of the US response to the 9/11 attacks were not anticipated by al Qaeda and neither was the US invasion of Iraq. Although more terrorist groups have joined forces with al Qaeda since the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Ladin s vision of a global jihad remains unfulfilled. Al Qaeda has suffered defeats in key battlegrounds. Constantly harassed, al Qaeda's core leadership has become increasingly isolated and irrelevant in directing the action.

2 Al Qaeda may well assess their situation differently, but they would agree the world is a different place than it was eight years ago. The gloves are off. The stakes have been raised for both sides. There are fewer boundaries in the use of violence. This struggle is not only about competing values and beliefs; it is a dispute between individuals with bitter feuds to settle. This human factor fuels the selection of the ground on which terrorists fight and the weapons that they wield. And this hate often has a hand in their demise. Abu Musab al-zarqawi s bitter rivalry with Jordanian intelligence led him to a bloody rampage and ignominious death in Iraq. Ibn al Khattab earned the ire of the Russian special services; they killed the Chechen terrorist leader with a poisoned letter. Ayman Zawahiri subordinated his Egyptian Jihad to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Ladin in an increasingly desperate bid to overthrow President Hosni Mubarek. Bin Ladin s own deeply held personal grievances against the Saudi Royals compelled him to launch an illconceived terrorist campaign in the desert Kingdom in 2003 that ended badly for al Qaeda. But as al Qaeda reflects upon the September 11 th operation, they probably believe they are on the right path to fulfilling their objectives. They re-wrote the terrorist playbook on 9/11 by utilizing weapons of mass destruction to execute mass casualty attacks against strategic targets. In essence, these attacks ended one era and ushered in a new one. It is an age in which terrorists hold the means to alter the course of history with a single blow. Having set such a precedent, it is likely only a matter of time before 9/11 is eclipsed by an even more devastating event that will occur somewhere in the world. If this is true, why have terrorists not struck on US soil since 2001? 9/11 is a tough act to follow. Having pulled off such a complex and successful operation, Osama bin Laden may find it problematic to settle on anything lesser -- or riskier -- that might damage his movement s almost mythological standing in the annals of terrorist lore. Al Qaeda is a conservative, risk averse organization. They apparently recognize it is better to not attack at all, than to do so in a way that falls short of the lofty goals they have set for themselves. As the group mulls over ways to regain the initiative, the leadership has few credible options of making good on threats to disrupt the global economy and convince their adversaries that they are in a war which they cannot win. It is also possible al Qaeda may believe they are winning this war. The most unsettling explanation of al Qaeda s extraordinary patience is that they think time is on their side. They probably believe they have drawn the US into a deepening commitment to fight a protracted insurgency in Afghanistan. Moreover, Saddam Hussein has been deposed, opening up long term possibilities for an Islamic theocracy in Iraq. General Pervez Musharraf is gone, amidst growing instability in Pakistan. A global jihad has opened up new battlegrounds. These developments create opportunities to change the global status quo. Al Qaeda may be waiting for a perfect storm in the alignment of targets, opportunity, and timing to launch another game changing attack.

3 In this light, the group s long held intent and persistent efforts to acquire nuclear and biological weapons represent a unique means of potentially fulfilling their wildest hopes and aspirations. As Osama bin Ladin declared in 1998, it is his duty to obtain WMD. He apparently understood at this early juncture that using such extreme weapons might become necessary at some stage of confrontation with the US and its allies. In spite of such a declaration, along with growing sophistication of terrorist planning to acquire WMD, the threat is not treated seriously in the US and abroad. The detractors of nuclear terrorism point out that the threat has been hyped. Unfortunately, it is true that some have used the WMD threat to incite fear and attempt to justify extreme tactics to combat terrorism. Skeptics argue there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, so why should people believe intelligence that terrorists are seriously trying to acquire WMD? If terrorists have such a weapon, why haven't they used it? The critics argue that it is impossible for men in caves to acquire and detonate a nuclear bomb. They acknowledge some nuclear material may be missing, but they exude confidence that it is surely not available in sufficient quantities to constitute a real threat, and that in any case, it is preposterous to believe that primitive and unsophisticated terrorists might be able to construct a bomb capable of producing nuclear yield. Let's hope the skeptics are right, because the threat posed by large scale WMD terrorism is not well understood and is being ignored by the international intelligence community. For example, there is a widespread assumption that terrorists will employ small scale and cruder forms of weapons of chemical, biological and radiological weapons because they are easier to acquire and use. However, the weight of the evidence suggests the opposite is true, i.e., terrorists choose weapons best suited for the targets they intend to strike. Attacking strategic targets may require the use of strategic weapons. Another dangerous bias in assessing the threat is that the possession of a nuclear weapon equates to its use, i.e., once terrorists obtain a nuclear bomb, they will use it and since they haven t used it, that means they don t have it. Such conventional thinking blinds many to the possibility that terrorists may not agree that it is difficult to stash a nuclear or biological weapon in a safe place for future use, without fear of discovery. After all, how hard is it to find the two most wanted men in the world hiding out in the remote areas of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border? Wishful thinking can be comforting as long as nothing bad happens - but it will become a focus of the next failure of imagination, if a nuclear plot reaches culmination. Accepting that nuclear terrorism can happen does not mean it is inevitable, however. The odds are stacked against terrorists being successful in acquiring a nuclear bomb. But is it worth gambling the future on a bet that terrorists won't roll snake eyes? In a world of increasingly rare and unpredictable events, a probability-based approach to managing risk must be replaced by leadership that is focused on mitigating threats in descending order of their possible consequences. In such an approach, making investments and taking all reasonable measures to exclude a nuclear or large scale biological attack must come first, before lesser threats with minimal lasting impact are addressed. A crucial element of success is to not underestimate the enemy, and to not dismiss low probability threats.

4 Where are the sources of greatest threat today? Where is nuclear catastrophe most likely to occur over the next decade? If we are able to anticipate the breaking news of a nuclear security meltdown, it stands to reason we might be able to prevent it from becoming tomorrow s news. These are the headlines that keep me up at night. Pakistani Loose Nukes In Hands of Terrorists Allegations that the threat posed by Pakistani loose nukes has been hyped and that the Pakistani military has everything under control may sound soothing, but they obscure the hard fact that there are more violent extremists in this region than anywhere else in the world. Mix in a rapidly expanding arsenal of nuclear weapons and growing instability in the country, and there is a greater possibility of a nuclear meltdown in Pakistan than anywhere else in the world. Given the daunting challenges that they face, the Pakistan military must set the global standard in nuclear security. It is a good thing that they approach this task with zeal and professionalism, for they have fewer margins for error than any other nuclear state. For the sake of comparison, in the US it is widely recognized that significant security upgrades had to be made after 9/11. Particular attention was paid to the possibility terrorists could gain access to a nuclear weapons related facility, particularly with the assistance of insiders working in the facility. Accordingly, large increases in funding were made after 9/11 in the US nuclear establishment to assure a much higher security standard, including an increased emphasis on intelligence and counterintelligence programs. In spite of these efforts, there have been appalling lapses in controls over nuclear weapons and compromise of nuclear weapons related information in recent years. Significant counterintelligence cases have increased; the more the authorities look, the more they find. With this in mind, US concerns over Pakistani vulnerabilities should not be interpreted as finger pointing or as meddling in Pakistan's internal affairs; it can happen in the US too, and it has. Three broader trends in Pakistan elevate the risks of a nuclear security compromise. A growing nuclear program in Pakistan means more nuclear activity taking place in more places more materials, weapons, facilities, transportation and storage. Smaller, more lethal plutonium bombs will be produced in greater numbers once the Khushab plutonium reactor comes on line in the near future. In short - more places where something can go wrong. Growing levels of extremism also means higher numbers of potential insiders in the nuclear establishment willing to work with outsiders to provide access to facilities and exfiltrate nuclear related materials and weapons. Recent warnings by Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists that the US will seize Pakistan's nuclear weapons amount to a clever recruitment pitch to insiders to collaborate with extremists. Soldiers and nuclear-related employees are presented with a false loyalty test to help ensure nuclear weapons continue to be controlled by the broader Sunni Ummah, lest they be appropriated by the US. In attempts to stoke such groundless fears, recent interviews by the father of the Pakistani

5 program, AQ Khan, and radical CEO of the "WMD for hire" supplier network, Bashiruddin Mahmud, call on Pakistan to expand its arsenal of nuclear weapons, implying they guarantee the state s sovereignty and assure its standing as a leading Islamic nation. Nuclear uncertainty is not a good thing in any part of the world. In Pakistan s case, increasing instability, including the worst case scenario of a Taliban takeover, could pose a direct challenge to maintaining command and control of the nuclear arsenal. Pakistan's nuclear National Command Authority is controlled by the military. However, the Pakistani constitution delegates certain responsibilities to the civilian government. This creates the potential for a military-civilian stand-off over nuclear assets during a crisis, especially in the event extremist elements assume power. Moreover, there are no guarantees of how the military and government would react to all contingencies they may encounter in a rapidly unfolding crisis. How would they respond to a breakdown in communication internally, or with the outside world? Unconfirmed news reports of a seizure of nuclear weapons in transit? Takeover of a facility by a rogue military unit? Taliban penetration of a nuclear weapons storage site? How would India interpret and react to such developments? Are current communications mechanisms between Pakistan, India, the US and other states sufficiently robust to be reliable during a crisis? At least in Pakistan, the risks are well known and extra precautions are being made to avert nuclear compromise. That is not the case everywhere, unfortunately. North Korea Supplies Terrorists Nuclear Bomb The Israeli bombing of the al Khibar reactor in Syria was a wake-up call that North Korea is not so predictable after all, in terms of possessing self-imposed constraints on transferring nuclear technologies to other parties. The sobering reality is that North Korean nuclear proliferation to Syria raises fundamental questions about how far Kim Jong Il is willing to go to confront not just the US, but China, all of its neighbors, and the international community. How much confidence can the world have that a state that prints counterfeit US currency, funds operations with narcotics trafficking, and starves its own people into submission, will not provide nuclear-related technologies to any customer for profit, including sub state actors? The extraordinary level of secrecy in handling intelligence concerning the North Korea- Syrian nuclear project helped ensure information did not leak before effective action could be taken by the Israelis to neutralize the threat. Unfortunately, secrecy also restricted the international community's ability to run down all leads before the North Koreans discovered that their project with the Syrians had been compromised. An opportunity was sacrificed to begin an early examination of active proliferation pathways flowing from the Hermit Kingdom. Along with a zero-based review of possible North Korean proliferation activity, there are three broad implications of Syrian-North Korean nuclear cooperation that should be assessed on an urgent basis.

6 The fact that the regimes of Kim Jong Il and Hafiz al-assad have suffered no consequences for conspiring to develop a nuclear weapons capability casts doubts on the viability of the non proliferation treaty and the credibility of the global nuclear order. US dialogue with Syria improved after the incident. The states comprising the six party talks continue to cajole North Korea back to the table to make new concessions in exchange for more promises the North Koreans will not keep. Al Khibar obliterated all of the red lines thought to exist in terms of nuclear deterrence, accountability and responsibility. A precedent has been set that it is OK to clandestinely provide nuclearrelated technologies to other states, as long as it is caught in time and neutralized through unilateral military action by a neighboring state. Taking into account the sobering reality that Kim Jong Il came close to providing Syria with the building blocks for nuclear weapons right under the nose of Israel next door - how confident can the international community be that there is not a long running AQ Kim" network in North Korea that is analogous to the AQ Khan rogue state nuclear supplier network in Pakistan? How well do we understand the growing phenomenon of nuclear supplier networks? Clearly, the chapter of proliferation history that suggests AQ Khan was a historical anomaly may need to be rewritten. The question is: what will it say? There is now fresh information and new leads that must be explored in order to determine the full extent of North Korean proliferation activity. It is important to bear in mind that the intelligence community did not find the al Khibar facility without a windfall of intelligence, combined with expert analysis. Nonetheless, the fact that the facility was near completion exposed deficiencies concerning collection efforts in the nuclear arena. It should give rise to doubts in the international community s ability to identify and neutralize clandestine nuclear sites and networks that may exist in other parts of the world. An inability to reliably assess state-related clandestine nuclear activity further reduces the prospects of uncovering clandestine nuclear trafficking and acquisition efforts of non state actors, which would have a much smaller footprint than their state program counterparts. North Korea s erratic and irresponsible behavior makes it a leading potential source on a witting or unwitting basis for terrorist acquisition of nuclear-related technologies and materials. Al Qaeda Launches Nuclear Attack It is difficult to objectively assess the feasibility of a terrorist nuclear attack without hyping and over dramatizing the threat. It is also hard to set aside fear in contemplating nuclear catastrophe. That said, it is necessary to approach the task with an optimistic mind set. Methodically sifting through all the variables of the threat can systematically lower the risks. This approach requires collection and analysis of all possible pathways, attack indicators, and choke points that comprise the footprint of a terrorist nuclear plot. Such a dynamic modus operandi can serve as the basis for undertaking anticipatory action that will identify actionable leads, compromise terrorist planning, and neutralize any impending attack.

7 What will it take to stop a terrorist nuclear attack? The chances of identifying indicators of a nuclear plot are highest in the earliest stages of planning. It is not a cliché to suggest it is better to defeat terrorists in their sanctuaries than to thrust our fate in the hands of a nuclear response (NEST) team responding to an imminent attack in our homeland. Over time, the likelihood of interdiction decreases, as a plan advances and the bomb inches inexorably closer towards its target. With this in mind, a premium must be paid to penetrate terrorist leadership, facilitation and support networks in the earliest and most formative stages of plotting. Finely tuned signals intelligence is required to generate actionable leads. Satellite surveillance and state-ofthe-art sensors must be widely employed to enhance early warning and detection of nuclear material. All the tools of intelligence tradecraft must be focused on trying to find a footprint no larger than Muhammed Atta's plot of nineteen operatives, the logistical support, and disciplined operational tradecraft that was necessary to carry out 9/11. Fortunately, the challenges faced by WMD terrorists are no less formidable than for the global intelligence agencies that confront them. The next Muhammed Atta will have to surmount many obstacles to successfully mounting a nuclear strike. There are only three pathways to a terrorist nuclear bomb. Terrorists could attack a nuclear facility in hopes of causing a large release of radioactivity. There is evidence al Qaeda considered this possibility; it is similar in approach to the novel use of airplanes as non obvious weapons that are inscrutable. Thanks to enhanced security and strong reinforcement of defenses at nuclear sites, however, terrorists appear to have concluded it is too difficult to cause a major accident by crashing a plane into a facility, or by using a team to penetrate a facility and gain access to nuclear weapons and materials. The second pathway to a mushroom cloud is to steal a bomb. The Former Soviet Union was an attractive place to shop for nuclear components after the break up of the USSR. There are credible reports of Ayman Zawahiri's presence in Russia in the mid 1990's. However, Zawahiri's announcement in that al Qaeda obtained nuclear devices in the FSU does not ring true. If al Qaeda purchased such weapons, why announce it to the world? Zawahiri s claim, made around the time the Taliban was deposed in Afghanistan, does not jibe with the group s aggressive pursuit of nuclear capability in later years. Of course, there is a possibility nuclear materials might be held in storage or not have reached their final destination, but reports of Russian "loose nukes" appear to have been greatly exaggerated. No credible reporting has surfaced that weapons have been lost, much less that some have found their way into the arms of terrorists. The evidence suggests that terrorists have not yet succeeded in finding the swiftest and most direct path to acquiring nuclear capability. Counting weapons is a far easier task than accounting for nuclear materials in bulk form. Al Qaeda's experience on the nuclear black market has taught planners that their best prospects of acquiring a yield-producing nuclear bomb lies in constructing an improvised nuclear device (IND) using weapons-usable materials. Building a bomb is surely not the preferred course of action, but it might be the only realistic pathway for sub state actors unable to buy a weapon or develop the infrastructure to enrich material to weapons grade.

8 Building a bomb is complex and requires success on many fronts. It involves the recruitment of malicious insiders in a nuclear facility who are in a position to bypass material accounting and control security procedures and smuggle material out of nuclear facilities. It involves years of patiently combing the dangerous nuclear black market for usable materials. It requires the enlistment of specialists to build a device, rig the explosives, smuggle all the parts to a staging area, and assemble the pieces, all in complete secrecy. It involves suicide bombers who can transport the bomb to the intended target. Even if they avoid discovery at all of the steps of an intricate plan, terrorists would never know for certain when the reach threshold for nuclear yield, or whether they have a viable bomb - until they try to detonate it. Al Qaeda must know the odds are long against conducting a successful nuclear attack. Yet, they are determined to try. Unfortunately, time favors intent; if terrorists get something wrong the first time, they can try and try again, until they succeed. They just might get lucky. More likely, their plans will be exposed somewhere in the course of planning. Opportunity will then shift to the defense in the form of a lead to identifying and unraveling an impending attack. Success might come in the form of the interdiction of material at a port or border crossing equipped with the latest sensors; or in human source information of a rogue scientist from a state weapons program; or perhaps via a signals intercept of an unusual shipment that doesn't look right to an alert analyst. In the end, taking an optimistic approach to preventing nuclear catastrophe is a two edged sword. Somewhere, perhaps where and when it is least expected, a clue is likely to emerge that will present an opportunity to disrupt an al Qaeda nuclear plot-in-progress. This will serve as the litmus test for all preparations that have been made for such an eventuality. There can be no hesitation in acting decisively. There can be no failure of imagination in prosecuting every lead on an urgent basis. There will be no second chances in responding to the challenge of nuclear terrorism. There will be no excuses for not acting in time. Is the world prepared to meet this standard?

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