The Paris attacks last Friday demonstrated ISIS ability to strike in the heart of Western Europe. Kevin Hulbert, a former senior intelligence officer in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, tells The Cipher Brief that these attacks signify a paradigm shift in ISIS’ tactics.
The Cipher Brief: Do you think the attacks in Paris represent a shift in strategy for ISIS—aka from a focus on Iraq and Syria to the West?
Kevin Hulbert: Very much so. Before, ISIS did not seem to have the desire or ability to attack outside Iraq and Syria. Now, all of a sudden, the group has attacked Western Europe and may be involved in the recent downing of a Russian airliner. So yes, ISIS seems to have turned a page. This attack represents a real and significant paradigm shift for the organization.
TCB: What kind of planning and support goes into the terrorist attacks we saw in Paris?
KH: This attack is significant because it demonstrates a level of command and control that is fairly sophisticated. It’s no small feat to train, stage, and launch coordinated attacks on multiple venues all while maintaining operational security. This is not the one-off, lone wolf style attack that we’ve come to be so concerned about. These attacks involved a lot of pre-planning and possibly even a rehearsal.
These kinds of attacks are disconcerting because we had hoped that the intelligence infrastructure we had built with our allies after 9/11, including with the French, would allow us to be able to spot and disrupt these types of attacks before they occurred. And we’ve done that successfully many times. You expect lone wolves to be able to get through the net. However, when it’s a big, well-organized attack that probably took a significant amount of planning, preparation and rehearsal, that’s disconcerting.
TCB: There has been speculation that ISIS used special technology or encrypted communications to mask their activities prior to the attacks. How do you defeat that?
KH: The whole paradigm shift speaks to this global game we’re playing, where we are fighting al-Qaeda or ISIS, and they are trying to stay one step ahead of us, and we’re trying to stay one step ahead of them. It’s similar to the planes in the attack on 9/11. If I had been on one of those planes, I would have said, “Na, no big deal, we’ve seen these hostage crises before. They are going to land the plane, they are going to negotiate and everybody walks off the plane 24 hours later hungry, tired, and unwashed.” But when you have a paradigm shift that fundamentally changes the equation, no one would have thought of that – taking over a plane and flying into a building. Following those attacks, we built cabin doors so they can withstand pressure. The communication aspect is another wrinkle in this long running game. The same way we banned liquids on flights, because we found out terrorists were going to use liquid bombs, and the same way we barred the cabin doors because we found out terrorists liked the idea of taking over a plane and flying it into a building. Communication is the same way.
TCB: What are some of the challenges that foreign security services like France have to deal with when combating and containing homegrown threats?
KH: The big challenge is where do you draw the line between personal liberty and security. After 9/11, here in this country, there was some criticism about moving the line too far in one direction. We gave up some personal liberties, and there have been great debates in this country about what should and should not be done in the face of terrorism. France has that exact same question to answer. These attacks were specifically designed to target iconic symbols of French life to send a message.
TCB: Is it likely the French had any warning?
KH: No. If they had had warning of the attacks certainly they would have stopped them. There’s been an increasing amount of chatter out there that has people concerned. We’ve seen increasing instability and a big jihadi problem in Western Europe. Not only in France, but also England, Belgium, Spain, Portugal – all of these Western European countries have people getting into jihad. And then because they are citizens, they just go back home easy enough too.
TCB: How much of an issue is intelligence sharing and communication among European countries?
KH: It’s a big deal. There has been talk about creating a European intel service, but no country wants to give up power and control and share their sources. So it’s never really gotten any traction. It would certainly be much more formidable if European countries were able to share information.
Another big problem for European countries is that their defense and intelligence budgets have been going down for the last few years. They just flat out do not want to spend money on intelligence or defense. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates criticized them in his closing round of speeches when he talked about how the Europeans need to step up and start spending money on defense. Similar to us, a large portion of their budget for intel comes out of defense spending.
