As the investigation into Monday night’s bombing in Manchester continues to unfold and details continue to emerge about the suspect, The Cipher Brief’s Bennett Seftel spoke with Mitch Silber, former Director of Intelligence Analysis at the NYPD, about the terrorist threat facing the UK as well as how to more effectively combat this threat.
The Cipher Brief: There was a certain a level of sophistication to Monday night’s bombing in Manchester. What does this type of attack reflect about ISIS’ capabilities in the UK?
Mitch Silber: With this attack in Manchester, we are beginning to move outside of London as being the sole focus of attacks in the UK. Granted, it’s not the first plot against the city – there was a very serious al Qaeda plot in 2009 against Manchester – but here it is popping up again. There could be some perception by acolytes of al Qaeda and ISIS that maybe London is too hard of a target, so they should go to a secondary city such as Manchester.
Also, you see an element of the tactics that you saw in the Bataclan attacks in Paris where rather than trying to get suicide bombers inside the stadium, they are hanging around the periphery of the stadium, and they explode their devices as people are exiting. No stadium really has prepared defenses for that.
TCB: Should the security of these soft targets be extended to the periphery? How much additional costs would that incur? Would it make more sense to just double down on intelligence collection and monitoring suspects as opposed to increasing security at these events?
MS: The ideal thing when you are protecting a physical object is having concentric circles of protection. They start inside the stadium, then they are at the entrances to the stadium, and then there are different elements as you get further and further away from the stadium.
Ostensibly, before you hit the metal detectors, there should be plain clothed or undercover security personnel plus canines walking through these gathering areas as people are approaching the stadium. There should be people in watch positions outside of the normal sight line looking for people who are walking or behaving in a way that calls attention to themselves.
And then even further back then that, there should be intelligence operations and human collection within those groups of radicalized individuals in the greater area to find out, as we did in New York in advance of the UN General Assembly, the U.S. Open, or specific holidays, what were people talking about in the extremist communities to try and figure out if someone might target these events.
TCB: Earlier today, it was reported that the suspect of the Manchester bombing, Salman Abedi, had traveled to Libya just prior to the attack, and his brother was even arrested in Libya. Should there be an increased focus on tracking travel manifestos, particularly from individuals returning from countries that are of concern?
MS: Anyone who has traveled to Libya, Syria, Yemen, or Turkey over the last year certainly deserves a lot more scrutiny when they come back into the country and probably some type of follow-up once they are back in the country just to assess what their mindset is. In New York, we had a program where we would follow-up with the people who came from countries of concern and just had a meeting with them to make an assessment as to whether we thought this person is a concern.
TCB: This is another incident perpetrated by a citizen of a Western country whose family immigrated from a country in the Middle East, North Africa, or Central Asia. What more can be done to prevent these people from being radicalized? Is there a root cause that needs to be addressed?
MS: Radicalization in the West is something that I personally have been talking about since 2007. To me, there is nothing new under the sun here. Second generation doesn’t assimilate well and they are vulnerable to extremist ideologies. It’s a pattern that has almost become the norm.
There are two different things that are complimentary – bettering intelligence and then some type of experimental programs for countering violent extremism. It’s not one or the other, but both of those.
TCB: Does raising the threat level in the UK indicate there is information or intelligence suggesting another attack is imminent or is that more of a precautionary measure in the aftermath of an attack when authorities are trying to piece together what happened?
MS: There are two issues to consider here. Number one, it’s a little bit of politics after the fact. The second thing is that it is a reflection of the number of groups and investigations that the Brits have going on at the moment. They may believe that there are possible live ties to other people who might have been involved with this. As a result, as they try to figure out what the nature of the network is, they want to take precautions and raise the threat level.
TCB: Often times with law enforcement, you don’t hear about the numerous successes and only see the rare instances when terrorists are able to successfully carry out attacks. There are a significant number of UK citizens, possibly as many as 750, who have traveled to Syria and several of them have returned home. Is law enforcement doing enough to monitor and track suspects and uncover these potential terrorist networks?
MS: The Brits have a very robust counterterrorism effort, although it’s hard for me to say whether it’s enough. They are dealing with a nearly impossible situation where the number of people who traveled overseas and come back, along with the people who are sympathetic to ISIS’ and al Qaeda’s ideology, have been growing. And yet, there are civil liberties that they have to navigate around.
It’s almost impossible to monitor everyone who you probably want to or would like to. Inevitably, some people are going to get through. You hope that you are able to minimize and reduce those possibilities and turn the odds somewhat slightly in your favor.
TCB: What should we look for next in the investigation?
MS: To me, the question now is what is the nature of this person’s ties to al Qaeda or ISIS? Was this inspirational, was this remote controlled, or did they do it on their own initiative? That’s what I’m waiting for.
TCB: If ties are found between the suspect and terrorist groups, and the attack was directed, are we going to see the UK increase the number of air strikes against terrorist targets in the Middle East? Is that tactic a demonstration of strength in the wake of these types of attacks?
MS: It is. With Libya, it just shows that Libya is this ongoing open sore that has the ability to inflict pain on Europe because it has not been stabilized. There are ramifications for an unstable Libya.
