A quick handful of notes on our terrorist attacks

TAT readers,

Happy New Year to one and all. I’m still a bit under the weather but wanted to offer a couple of brief thoughts regarding yesterday’s terrorist events, both in New Orleans and in Las Vegas. As most of you know, the last three quarters of my career in uniform, both at home and deployed, was in CT/ Counterterrorism. Over years of operational experience, there are things that you learn about such events but the most important is, to not draw conclusions too quickly with only a handful of details, publicly available.

For one thing, decent news reports this morning discuss closed classified briefings to congress. This is for very good reasons and should not be seen as an attempt to hide public safety from the public. In New Orleans, the FBI and local authorities would not have given the okay to reopen Bourbon Street had they not deemed it safe, or allowed the Sugar Bowl to go forward, if the imminent risk level was still high.

Other reported facts, such as the “black ISIS Flag” are important, yet not the whole story regarding who, if anyone assisted the terrorist, Shamsud-din-Jabbar, killed during his attack. My experience strongly suggests external assistance regarding certain aspects of the planning and execution of the New Orleans attack, such as tactics, weapons, IEDs (improvised explosive devices) etc., but then again, only time and deep investigation will tell.

There are many different Islamist terror groups and like people, each have their own unique identity or fingerprints, so-to-speak. These fingerprints provide important clues to determining where the terrorist acquired his expertise and support. For the purpose of not tipping off supporting groups, websites and individuals, these telltale fingerprints will not be reported publicly and mostly remain in classified channels. Those with experience though will recognize some of them that are reported. From what I have read so far, I have some thoughts.

Photo and story by CSIS: Note, this report claims ISKP originated in 2014 and while this is true, it actually grew out of the Khorasan group circa 2010

What is interesting in both the New Orleans and Las Vegas cases, is the citizenship and military backgrounds of both. There has long been knowledge of radicalization within military ranks, though somewhat infrequent when it comes to Islamic extremism. The Las Vegas case is quite odd at this stage of the game. The active duty, reported Green Beret, Matthew Livelsberger, was from Camp Liberty, formerly known as Fort Bragg, home of the airborne and US Army Special Operations Command. Ironically or otherwise, Jabbar had also spent time at Fort Bragg. While we have had some serious Islamic Extremism attacks such as the attack in 2009 by Army doctor, Major Nidal Hassan at Fort Hood that left 19 dead and 32 wounded, this type of Islamist attack is relatively rare.

Photo above: AP Story by Jason Dearen, Michelle R. Smith and Aaron Kessler/ photo/ illustration by Marshall Ritzel

By the numbers, the most serious radicalization issues to face the US military in the past decade or so, is far-right extremism, which the Pentagon has not been exactly forthright in addressing nor publicizing. Fort Bragg has had their issues with certain types of far-right extremism far before the Trump era. This doesn’t make it a forgone conclusion that the Las Vegas attacker was right-wing though. Some of his old letters to the editor in his hometown Ohio newspaper dating to 2007 was very wary of the US leaving Iraq. He was identified as a Green Beret whose role deployed, primarily involves engaging with indigenous populations. Another issue that investigators will look at is that both had time at Camp Liberty, then Fort Bragg, yet unclear if it was during the same time period.

The following graphics regarding extremism in the US military come from START/ Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, the DHS Center for Excellence at the University of Maryland. This 2021 report was ironically just updated a couple of weeks ago.

It is also interesting that it was Trump, who during his first term, sold out so many of our Iraqi allies, especially the Kurds. There are many in the Special Operations and Green Beret communities as well, that are unhappy with “abandoning our Afghan allies, me included.” Today, Iraq is the playground of multiple terrorist groups, both Sunni like ISIS and others, Shia and affiliated with Iran. Afghanistan, now under the control of the Taliban, has reinstated the abuse of many of the indigenous peoples, Green Berets engaged with, while deployed. As you can see, there can be multiple potential motivations that only deep investigation can sort out.

Another interesting fact regarding Jabbar’s ISIS affiliation is that the black flag of ISIS, originated with an organization just getting started during one of my Afghan deployments, circa 2010-2011. While deployed over the holidays 2010/ 2011, 11 miles from the Pakistan border and right across from Miriam Shah, Pakistan, was my introduction to the Khorasan Group. That group over time developed into ISKP or ISIS in Khorasan Province. Khorasan has a special meaning to far-right, Sunni extremists. Miram Shah, is a known venue where the worst of all terrorist organizations came together to fight, collaborate, share intelligence, tactics and strategy.

The black flags are part of most Sunni extremist Hadiths or stories, that tell of a powerful central Asian Islamic army that carry black flags out of Central Asia in order to reestablish Islamic rule. They have come to be mostly associated with ISIS over time. The original Khorasan Group simply became an ISIS franchise circa 2014. Origins of different but related extremist organizations can be very diverse. The same applies in far-left, far-right, animal rights, abortion rights groups etc.

Finally, one last complicating feature of both attacks occurring the same day is that two or occasionally three coordinated attacks has often been the fingerprints of AQ. Is the ISIS flag a deception to point a fin get at a competing group or a foreign government? There are several plausible scenarios.

The point being is that it is far too early to begin drawing concrete conclusions regarding motivations, affiliations etc. We just cannot make too many assumptions at this time. All that we know for certain is what is publicly available from credible sources. Putting these pieces together is a job exclusively, for experienced CT experts and practitioners, not politicians and pundits. The interesting details noted in today’s short essay have insights that could lead to many sources. A full investigation could take a year or more but we will have much clearer picture in the not too distant future.

The incoming administration has few friends in the Middle East and Central and South Asian Muslim communities, outside of oil producing nations. This extends to both friends and foes. For this reason, we must look to “walk and chew gum at the same time” by focusing on American domestic extremism such as the most prevalent, Far-right version, while continuing to focus on Islamic Extremism. Both promise to become more prevalent again in the next four years. From 2001 on, the US national security community failed miserably here at home by only really dedicating resources and focus to Islamic Extremism. This allowed the exponential growth of domestic extremism with far-right extremism becoming the more dangerous and lethal than all others combined. This is another great reason to keep politics and politicians out of the CT profession. All forms of extremism require focus at the same time, commensurate with their threat level.

I highly recommend that all voters condemn the actions of any politicians that attempt to distort CT investigations and threats for political purposes. We all lose when they do, and the devastation imposed on innocent Americans, is the cost.

I promised short but wanted to add some context to what we have been exposed to in media over the past 48 hours or so. As I have noted often, my definition for truth is, “all known facts presented objectively and in context.” Anything else is propaganda.

Now, all my best to one and all. Let’s do 2025 smarter than we did during the election season by picking credible sources, and waiting for all the facts, undisturbed by political hacks.

Paul