CYBER TERRORISM

THE SPYMASTERS I MEET: FBI SPECIAL-AGENT-IN-CHARGE FRANK FIGLIUZZI
In April 2009, at an endisclosed location in Cleveland, AFIO members heard FBI Special Agent Figliuzzi discuss "Cyber Attack." Frank Figliuzzi earned his undergrad degree from Fairfield University CT, and a Juris Doctorate with honors from the Un. of Connecticut School of Law.

He joined the FBI in 1987 and was assigned to the Atlanta Division, working terrorism and foreign counterintelligence investigations. Later, his assignments with the FBI involved economic espionage and foreign sponsored theft of trade secrets. Agent Figliuzzi led the FBI's first squad devoted exclusively to crimes against children, and following 9/11, he was selected to head FBI Miami's new Counterterrorism Branch. He implemented the South Florida Joint Terrorism Task Force with 160 personnel from 34 agencies and served as on-scene commander during the nation's first anthrax murder in Boca Raton, Florida.
(Above right photo- deadly anthrax spore)

In 2006, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III, has named C. Frank Figliuzzi the Special Agent in Charge of the Cleveland Field Office. The Cleveland Field Office is headquartered in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, with nine resident agencies in Akron, Canton, Elyria, Lima, Mansfield, Painesville, Sandusky, Toledo, and Youngstown.



Agent Figliuzzi discussed Cyber Terrorism ath this private meeting, information which I plan to write newspaper commentaries about.








Links:
http://cleveland.fbi.gov/ = Cleveland FBI Office
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6obA2NTDa_M = Video of 2001 attackXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

~

THE SPYMASTERS I MEET- COLONEL BEHRAM SAHUKAR
In March 2009, as a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO), I'll be meeting retired Colonel Behram A. Sahukar of The Parachute Regiment, Indian Army. The location is classifed. He's an invaluable resource for DHS. After reading his writings, particularly the document "THE INDIAN APPROACH TO COUNTER- INSURGENCY OPERATIONS," it is obvious he has much to offer the U.S. in countering terrorism and insurgency-related violence.

He's fought counter-insurgency operations in India for years and in the last two decades, the casualties of violence in India have been high:
1. Over 65,000-75,000 killed.
2. Over 760,000 persons displaced from their homes.
3. Over 10,000 security personnel killed.
4. Assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984 by her Sikh bodyguards. 5. The blowing up of Air India passenger aircraft Kanishka by Canada-based Sikh extremists killing all 329 persons on aboard in 1985.
6. Assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, former Primer Minister of India by a Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) female suicide bomber in May 1991.
7. The hijacking of an Indian Airlines aircraft with over 180 persons on board by Pakistani terrorists from Katmandu to Taliban-held Kandahar in December 1999 and the subsequent release of hardcore Pakistani terrorists held in Indian jails.
8. A suicide attack on India’s Parliament to kill or hold hostage over 200 parliamentarians who were in session inside the building in December 2001.
9. A suicide attack on the Jammu and Kashmir State Legislature building (Srinagar) in October 2001 killing over 45.
10. Multiple bomb attacks on economic and soft targets in Bombay in March 1993 killing 257 and injuring over 1,700; in August 2003 killing 52; and on commuter trains in July 2006 killing 209 and injuring hundreds more.
11. Multiple bombings in October 2005 two days before the Hindu festival of Diwali and the Muslim festival of Eid in Delhi killing 61 and injuring over 200.
12. Bombings on the Delhi-Lahore Samjhauta Express (India-Pakistan Peace train) in February 2007 killing over 68. Several other unexploded bombs were located on the train and defused by the authorities.
13. Twin bombings in market places in August 2007 killing over 42 in the South Indian city of Hyderabad. 19 other bombs were set to go off across the city but were detected and defused by the police well in time.
14. Various attacks on civilians in market places, towns and villages, places of Hindu worship, and pilgrims killing hundreds all over India as a fallout of the simmering unrest in Jammu and Kashmir and the ongoing insurgency in some of India’s Northeastern States.

15. Mumbai (below photo & right photo)



Colonel Behram A. Sahukar offers 12 basic tenets to follow (Declassified Secrets comments are in parenthesis):
1. Indian approach to COIN (counter insurgency) has been a mix of political accommodation, economic development and the use of force. (Sounds like Gen. Petraeus may have adopted the Indian COIN stategy).
2. Demands for secession or independence from the Union are put down firmly and not accepted. India is willing to wear down the insurgents until this demand is dropped or modified.
3. India is willing to talk to separatist groups and its neighbors even though they support cross border terrorism and insurgency (Pres. Obama accepts this strategy in Iranian and general terrorist relations; Pres. Bush did not).
4. While India is willing to create new states within the Union to accommodate ethno-nationalist aspirations and tribal boundaries, it is not willing to create additional states based solely on any one religion (This doctrine isn't what Vice Pres. Biden recommended for Iraq; remember, he wanted Iraq divided up into separate regions, based on religion).
5. India has been very particular not to use indiscriminate force, aerial bombardment and heavy firepower in COIN despite its conventional and nuclear superiority in the region (To what extent are we creating enemies by killing civilians, albeit unintentionally....collateral damage? Perhaps, this is why Col. Sahukar follows this tenet).
6. COIN operations in Kashmir have been very particular to minimize the impact on India’s 140 million moderate Muslims (Torture, secret prisons, Guantanamo, etc.,...could these factors be negatively impacting the Muslim mindset more than we realize? Why create more enemies? Unfortunately, simply having western boots on middle east soil negatively impacts most Muslims, who feel our ways is a threat to their religious beliefs).
7. Despite proof of external support, India has always conducted its COIN within its own borders.
8. India COIN approach follows the strategy of ‘an iron fist in a velvet glove,’ adopting an aggressive military approach towards hard-core insurgents and a humane face towards the local population (I believe General Petraeus is now mastering this strategy in Iraq).
9. India’s COIN approach has been aimed at using the security forces to create conditions for a political solution to restore normalcy in the insurgency affected area (We are using this strategem in Iraq and will in Afghanistan).
10. Human rights and weaning the population away from supporting the insurgents is the major plank of India’s COIN operations. To achieve this a multi-dimension approach to include, people-centric civic action programs, economic development, perception management programs, cultivating a responsible media, training of troops for COIN operations, force modernization, good governance, the rule of law, accountability and transparency, diplomatic and international cooperation and support, and a functioning corruption free democracy form parts of the comprehensive Indian approach to COIN operations (A lesson here for the U.S.; Iraq has much corruption resulting in much of our U.S. monies and efforts having been wasted).
11. India has the capability to stay the course and fight an insurgency in a protracted low intensity conflict to wear down the insurgencies and its supporters however, it prefers to resolve the legitimate grievances and welcome its citizens into the democratic process as quickly as possible (Declassified Secrets likes the term "low intensity conflict." The enormous cost of the Iraq war is wearing us down. If we had focused more on tenets 1 to 11 after invading Iraq, Declassified Secrets wonders if the U.S. would have lost less lives, wounded the war down quicker, and saved billions of dollars).
12. In Kashmir, the Indian approach has been based on three major thrust lines to wean away Kashmiri support to the insurgency and restore normalcy; first, cut off the insurgents from their support base in Pakistan and destroy them within India to provide security to the state, improve the socio-economic structure of the state by increasing development projects, ensuring good governance, and improving the daily life of the people ravaged by decades of insurgency and terrorism, psychological initiatives to win the hearts and minds of the people and initiate a genuine dialogue with all parties to the conflict restore India’s credibility within Kashmir and arrive at a just resolution within the Union ("Wean awayt Kashmiri support to the insurgency." Let's wean away support to the Taliban. How about starting by sending teams of agricultural scientists into Afghanistan with the mission of finding crops that will grow there that have a ready world market. Then, R&D will allow us to plow up hundreds of thousands of Poppy acres to grow these crops. Americans won't mind their tax monies paying the Afghan farmers to grow any crop that replaces the Taliban's main income...poppy plants.

Afghanistan's 407,550 acres of poppy fields could be "replaced" with this new cash crop. The government has boosted efforts to plough up poppy, only to spark often-deadly clashes between police and farmers, thus alienating the populace from their government and the U.S. We're playing into the Taliban's hands here!

Let's start with the southern provinces that were worst hit by a Taliban-led insurgency such as Helmand, the biggest opium-growing region. Our agricultural R&D will produce genetically-modified crops that can grow in Afghanistan. Actually, switchgrass and other “second-generation” biomass products could grow there unmodified.

We could build refineries to turn switchgrass and other biomass plants into fuel: good-paying jobs for the Afghans).
This curious graffiti was left on the embankments of Marine Drive Mumbai after the terrorist attack. Does it perhaps reflect the mood of Indians after the Mumbai Terror Attacks on Novermber 26, 2008? I think so!

The Indian Army, Navy and the Air Force of the Gujarat coast on February 9 jointly took up an integrated Theatre Level Operational Readiness Exercise. It was designed to send a message to Pakistan. The exercise designed to validate synergy between the forces. Click below and view Indian TV network coverage of this coordinated operation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNuGvt_KxdU&feature=related