FBI Begins Counterterrorism Reforms

The FBI’s counterterrorism division has begun a significant transformation to enable it to better track global connections between terrorists and the larger organizations they act in, the Washington Post reported yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 6, 2006).

Using the United Kingdom’s MI5 domestic intelligence agency and its own organized crime operations as models, the FBI plans to merge its two international terrorism units which have concentrated separately on Osama Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network and on other terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, said Joseph Billy Jr., the agency’s assistant director for counterterrorism.

The new organization scheme would send unprocessed intelligence and threat information through “desk officers” with deep knowledge of specific world regions or terrorist entities.  The officers would find patterns in the information and formulate strategies for counterterrorism operations.

The approach mirrors some characteristics of MI5 in the United Kingdom, which Sept. 11 commission members and FBI critics have pointed to as an ideal example of a domestic counterterrorism organization.

“We want to place these people together so the intelligence is being shared across each way — left, right, up and down — and that, in turn, will help drive the tactical aspect of how we focus our resources,” Billy said.

The FBI also plans to borrow from its experience battling organized crime in the 1980s, directing counterterrorism agents not to immediately arrest suspects when they do not pose an imminent danger.  This would allow agents to continue to survey them, identifying corroborators, confidants and supporters across many groups and countries, Billy said.

“We want to be in a position where we have (threats in) not only one area of the country identified but have the entire picture that may be taking place throughout the United States identified and … strategically focus our resources in a way that would give us the better chance of dismantling a group, as opposed to only identifying one aspect of a much larger threat,” Billy said.

The reforms were encouraged in part by the FBI’s discovery of independent U.S. terrorist cells that took inspiration from al-Qaeda but received aid and guidance from sympathizers around the world not necessarily linked by a single organizational structure.

“You don't want to limit yourself to just assuming that one person who is a member of a certain terrorist group won't particularly try to recruit or bring into the fold others overseas,” Billy said.

Former Justice Department attorney David Laufman agreed that terrorist networks have become less centralized.

“The Internet has become the most significant recruiting device for multinational sources of Jihadist talent. It cuts across nationalities and ethnicities.”

However, Laufman warned that the FBI’s restructuring effort must “overcome the agent culture of the bureau” by allowing the case officers direct agent investigations as MI5 directs Scotland Yard investigations in the United Kingdom.

“The key to making this successful is to build a first-class analytical cadre, give counterterrorism analysts equivalent stature to agents in the FBI's counterterrorism culture, and create an environment where analysts and agents continuously and seamlessly work together to identify relationships, sources of funding and operational plotting,” he said.

Experts said the FBI must also recruit more Arabic speakers and intelligence analysts and then retain them long enough to develop expertise in their subject areas (John Soloman, Washington Post, Sept. 26).

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