The Intelligence Community provides dynamic careers to talented professionals in almost every career category. The ODNI is a senior-level agency that provides oversight to the Intelligence Community. ODNI is primarily a staff organization that employs subject-matter experts in the areas of collection, analysis, acquisition, policy, human resources, and management.
NCTC has the statutory responsibility to serve as the central and shared knowledge bank on known and suspected terrorists and international terror groups, as well as their goals, strategies, capabilities, and networks of contacts and support.
Terrorists target the weakest links of border infrastructure. Implementing international standards and good practices of sound, modern integrated and cooperative border management contributes to stopping terrorist and illegal trafficking flows.
No country has all answers to cross-border challenges posed by returning and relocating foreign terrorist fighters and dependents. International cooperation and exchange of good practices are key for principled prosecution, rehabilitation and reintegration.
Mainstreaming gender considerations into counter-terrorism work makes preventive and responsive efforts more effective, helps to better understand the drivers of radicalization and recognizes the important role that women play in addressing the threat.
The transformative power of sports and its positive values bring us together. They also help address conditions conducive to terrorism by building community cohesion and resilience. At the same time, major sporting events are terrorist targets and need to be secure.
While new technologies have transformed our way of life for the better, their misuse by terrorists presents a growing challenge to the security of critical infrastructure and our own. Working together to prevent, protect and mitigate cyber damage must be a priority.
Counterterrorism (also spelled counter-terrorism), also known as anti-terrorism, relates to the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, law enforcement, businesses, and intelligence agencies use to combat or eliminate terrorism.[1]
If an act of terrorism occurs as part of a broader insurgency, and insurgency is included in the definition of terrorism, then counterterrorism may additionally employ counterinsurgency measures. The United States Armed Forces uses the term "foreign internal defense" for programs that support other countries' attempts to suppress insurgency, lawlessness, or subversion, or to reduce the conditions under which threats to national security may develop.[2][3][4]
The first counterterrorism body formed was the Special Irish Branch of the Metropolitan Police, later renamed the Special Branch after it expanded its scope beyond its original focus on Fenian terrorism. Various law enforcement agencies established similar units in the United Kingdom and elsewhere.[5] The first tactical counterterrorist unit was GSG 9 of the German Federal Police, formed in response to the 1972 Munich massacre.[6]
Counterterrorist forces expanded with the perceived growing threat of terrorism in the late 20th century. After the September 11 attacks, Western governments made counterterrorism efforts a priority. This included more extensive collaboration with foreign governments, shifting tactics involving red teams,[7] and preventive measures.[8]
Although terrorist attacks affecting Western countries generally receive a large share of media attention,[9] most terrorism occurs in less developed countries.[10] Government responses to terrorism, in some cases, can lead to substantial unintended consequences,[11][vague] such as what occurred in the above-mentioned Munich massacre.[further explanation needed]
Most counterterrorism strategies involve an increase in policing and domestic intelligence gathering. Central techniques include intercepting communications and location tracking. New technology has expanded the range of military and law enforcement options for intelligence gathering. Many countries increasingly employ facial recognition systems in policing.[12][13][14]
Domestic intelligence gathering is sometimes directed at specific ethnic or religious groups, which is a source of political conversy. Mass surveillance of an entire population raises objections on civil liberties grounds. Domestic terrorists, especially lone wolves, are often harder to detect because of their citizenship or legal status and ability to stay under the radar.[15]
To select the effective action when terrorism appears to be more of an isolated event, the appropriate government organizations need to understand the source, motivation, methods of preparation, and tactics of terrorist groups. Good intelligence is at the heart of such preparation, as well as a political and social understanding of any grievances that might be solved. Ideally, one gets information from inside the group, a very difficult challenge for human intelligence operations because operational terrorist cells are often small, with all members known to one another, perhaps even related.[16]
One of the primary difficulties of implementing effective counterterrorist measures is the waning of civil liberties and individual privacy that such measures often entail, both for citizens of, and for those detained by states attempting to combat terror.[23] At times, measures designed to tighten security have been seen as abuses of power or even violations of human rights.[24]
Democratic principles and values are essential tools in the fight against terrorism. Any successful strategy for dealing with terrorism requires terrorists to be isolated. Consequently, the preference must be to treat terrorism as criminal acts to be handled through existing systems of law enforcement and with full respect for human rights and the rule of law. We recommend: (1) taking effective measures to make impunity impossible either for acts of terrorism or for the abuse of human rights in counter-terrorism measures. (2) the incorporation of human rights laws in all anti-terrorism programs and policies of national governments as well as international bodies."[27]
Some countries see preemptive attacks as a legitimate strategy. This includes capturing, killing, or disabling suspected terrorists before they can mount an attack. Israel, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Russia have taken this approach, while Western European states generally do not.
Another major method of preemptive neutralization is the interrogation of known or suspected terrorists to obtain information about specific plots, targets, the identity of other terrorists, whether or not the interrogation subjects himself is guilty of terrorist involvement. Sometimes more extreme methods are used to increase suggestibility, such as sleep deprivation or drugs. Such methods may lead captives to offer false information in an attempt to stop the treatment, or due to the confusion caused by it. These methods are not tolerated by European powers. In 1978 the European Court of Human Rights ruled in the Ireland v. United Kingdom case that such methods amounted to a practice of inhuman and degrading treatment, and that such practices were in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights Article 3 (art. 3).
The human security paradigm outlines a non-military approach that aims to address the enduring underlying inequalities which fuel terrorist activity. Causal factors need to be delineated and measures implemented which allow equal access to resources and sustainability for all people. Such activities empower citizens, providing "freedom from fear" and "freedom from want".[citation needed]
Terrorism has often been used to justify military intervention in countries where terrorists are said to be based. Similar justifications were used for the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the second Russian invasion of Chechnya.
Military intervention has not always been successful in stopping or preventing future terrorism, such as during the Malayan Emergency, the Mau Mau uprising, and most of the campaigns against the IRA during the Irish Civil War, the S-Plan, the Border Campaign, and the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Although military action can temporarily disrupt a terrorist group's operations temporarily, it sometimes does not end the threat completely.[31]
Whatever the target of terrorists, there are multiple ways of hardening the targets to prevent the terrorists from hitting their mark, or reducing the damage of attacks. One method is to place hostile vehicle mitigation to enforce protective standoff distance outside tall or politically sensitive buildings to prevent car bombings. Another way to reduce the impact of attacks is to design buildings for rapid evacuation.[34]
To give one more example, the Northeast blackout of 2003 demonstrated the vulnerability of the North American electrical grid to natural disasters coupled with inadequate, possibly insecure, SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) networks. Part of the vulnerability is due to deregulation, leading to much more interconnection in a grid designed for only occasional power-selling between utilities. A small number of terrorists, attacking critical power facilities when one or more engineers have infiltrated the power control centers, could wreak havoc.[original research?]
For a threatened or completed terrorist attack, an Incident Command System (ICS) may be invoked to control the various services that may need to be involved in the response. ICS has varied levels of escalation, such as might be required for multiple incidents in a given area (e.g. 2005 London bombings or the 2004 Madrid train bombings), or all the way to a National Response Plan invocation if national-level resources are needed. For example, a national response might be required for a nuclear, biological, radiological, or significant chemical attack.
Again under an incident command model, local police can isolate the incident area, reducing confusion, and specialized police units can conduct tactical operations against terrorists, often using specialized counterterrorist tactical units. Bringing in such units will typically involve civil or military authority beyond the local level.
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