Taken from JINSA

Fred Burton, Vice President for Global Security and Counterterrorism at Stratfor, the worlds leading privately held intelligence company, spoke to the JINSA Board of Directors on November 15 about the threats that the United States faces from al Qaeda, and how America can better fight terrorists. Burton first explained his views on terrorism and how it differs from many other counter terrorism experts including Stratfor’s founder and president, Dr. George Friedman, who also addressed the JINSA Board. “George looks at the problem from 30,000 feet. I basically look at the problem from the last one hundred yards.”

Burton has a long list of credentials when it comes to counter terrorism. He served with the Secret Service protecting Vice President Bush during President Ronald Reagan’s first term. He then became a Special Agent involved in counterterrorism for the State Department. Burton’s work at the State Department led to both arrests and successfully foiled terrorist plots. Burton discussed a range of topics dealing with issues such as the next potential target of al Qaeda in America and how to combat it, terrorist sleeper cells in America, and the “lone wolf threat.”

Burton predicted that future al Qaeda attacks would be more simplistic in both their operations and their targets. He used the example of the recent assassination of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh in Amsterdam. A single gunman later identified as a fundamentalist Muslim, killed Van Gogh and pinned a note to his body deploring critical attitudes toward Islam. Van Gogh had recently released a film dealing with brutality towards women in Muslim societies. This is the kind of terrorist attack that we will begin to see in America, Burton predicted. We have many high profile individuals who, like Theo Van Gogh, are vulnerable to attack. According to Burton, “you can no longer even think about blowing up the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, or the President of the United States. Trust me, I’ve been there and done that and you are not going to be able to do it.” A more likely al Qaeda attack would involve killing a few key CEOs at the same time or attacking a few major companies at the same time. The best way to combat this kind of terrorism is to engage in counter surveillance to look for the pre operation surveillance indicators. According to Burton, law enforcement must have counter-surveillance in place to observe terrorists engaging in preoperational information gathering like videotaping.

Burton next dealt with the issue of sleeper cells. He explained that there are some three to five al Qaeda sleeper cells left in the United States; one in New York/New Jersey, one in Washington D.C., one in Houston, Texas, one in Los Angeles, and one more that is at large. Burton claimed that law enforcement is key. Allowing them to get information to the public about potential terrorist plots is very important in combating attacks carried out by sleeper cells. Burton pointed to soft targets like hotels and corporations as al Qaeda’s future targets. As an example, he cited the recent bombing of a Marriott hotel in Islamabad. Burton also addressed the main problem with soft targets: it is impossible to protect every potential target simply because it would be too expensive. His solution is to perform vulnerability assessments to identify the locations that are most likely to be hit by terrorist attacks. Another way to prevent casualties when dealing with soft targets is to insist on what he called “enhanced physical security.” As an example, Burton said that all vulnerable potential targets should have ballistic window film because flying glass kills the most people in a bomb blast. He also noted that buildings should have an acceptable “stand off distance” to prevent vehicle bombs from coming close enough to do serious damage.

One of the most important things that law enforcement can do with regard to counter surveillance is to see targets through the eyes of the terrorists. If one can understand how terrorists conduct their operations, they can be thwarted more effectively. Burton explained that al Qaeda figures out a way to remove the visible security as part of their attack plan. Because this is known, changes have been made to the way targets are protected by adding a level of counter-surveillance security. This is now the way most high profile CEOs are protected in America. The biggest threat in America today, according to Burton, is the “lone wolf threat.” These are Islamic extremists in America that want to do something for the movement and have no contact with a larger organization.

In closing, Burton drew a frightening comparison between America’s ability to fight terrorism and the Wizard of Oz. The wizard, whom everyone believes to be all-powerful, is actually nothing more than a frail old man. Anti-terrorist law enforcement is similar in that most Americans believe it to be much better than it actually is. Burton stressed however, that America is much better off than it was before September 11 but we still have a long way to go.