In the confrontation with any kind of crime, obtaining relevant information is paramount. The collection, accumulation, processing and storage of such information, in fact, determine the strategy of the special services, designed today to pay special attention both to terrorist organizations as a whole and to lone fighters.ISRAELIANS ARE TERRORISTS CALCULATE
The European Union’s anti-terror coordinator, Gilles de Kershov, considers it necessary to use targeted, ie targeted, monitoring of social networks in the search for terrorists. De Kershov’s point of view is of particular importance because, continuing his thought, he notes the high probability that the militants will use the Internet in the next five years to carry out terrorist acts at nuclear power plants.
In his speech at the International Intelligence Conference in Tel Aviv, the EU coordinator called for the use of meta-data processing, in other words, identified and structured basic information of cyberspace in the search for terrorists. “Internet providers shy away from monitoring traffic for finding such traces,” Gilles de Kershov draws attention, “for it is difficult to identify the necessary data from a vast array, unlike, for example, child pornography, which is automatically detected.”
In accordance with the information collected using technical means and agents, Israeli intelligence agencies plan operations and compile lists of terrorists to be liquidated. In the words of the former director of the Shabak (the Israeli General Security Service) and the former Minister of Internal Security Avi Dichter, “a terrorist who is on the list for liquidation is considered dead - all that remains is to kill him.”
ISRAELI STANDARD DIFFERENT FROM EUROPEAN
The Israeli authorities are ready to share their accumulated experience, and a number of states quite successfully apply their experience. However, as de Kershov rightly noted in his speech, “European standards of civil rights differ from Israeli in terms of greater attention to the private sphere.” In specific realities, such a difference is expressed, in particular, in the fact that the European special services practically abandoned the use of informants among groups of the population, the law-abiding individual representatives of which are in doubt. Americans, in fact, face the same problem that they have recently tried to ignore. Michael Hayden, the former director of the CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA), frankly told this in an interview with well-known Israeli observer Ronen Bergman.
Stopping in more detail on the work of the NSA, Hayden admitted: “... we have become the largest agency storing Big Data (huge amounts of data). Any data - the enemy and best friend ... We are not going to listen and use what they say a half billion users, because it is impractical and from an operational point of view will harm us. No service will be able to pump out the contents of so many computers to find something of real interest to it. ” The former American intelligence officer and counterintelligence officer admits: “When you start processing data that you are interested in — and this is only a small part of the picture — you are violating the right to privacy. But there is nothing to do. There is no other way to get the necessary information. ” Today, Europeans are beginning to understand that their “standard” of confronting terror must be changed.
In this regard, it is impossible to ignore the relatively recent speech in the British parliament of the current Prime Minister Theresa May at the time of her leadership of the Ministry of the Interior. The refusal of parliament to pass a law obliging communications companies to collect and store online data, in the opinion of the current head of government and the former head of the internal political department, is "a threat to people's lives and weakens the country's ability to defend itself." Continuing her thought, May stressed: “... the lack of an appropriate project reduces the capabilities of people ensuring our security and increases the threat to the lives of citizens. And yes, crimes will go unpunished and the innocent will be at risk. ”
Vladimir Beyder, a prominent Israeli columnist in his article “Do not discern forest trees”, published in the Russian-language newspaper Vesti, draws attention to the following fact: “The worst thing about the current wave of terror in Europe is that they want to give it away other. Indeed, in the Western media, Islamist attacks are often attributed to deeds of madmen. But such an approach, according to Beider, in itself means the incomplete adequacy of those who do not want to notice the obvious: the bacilli of Islamist terrorism ripen and produce bloody shoots not only in the Middle East.
In Israel, at the slightest suspicion of persons associated with terrorist organizations or justifying terror, the prosecutor's office and the courts allow the secret services to monitor the electronic transmission of information, mobile communications and the Internet of suspects. The leaders of radical organizations do not doubt the determination of the Israeli police and the relevant services to be in a state of constant awareness of their plans. Therefore, militant commanders are forced to use couriers as connecting links. In such cases, the advantage in confronting terrorists is immediately transferred to the Shabak and Mossad (Israel Foreign Intelligence Service). The essence of the matter, of course, is the high professionalism of the local special services, who pay a lot of attention to undercover work. In other words, the informants whom the Western colleagues of the Israelis in the intelligence and counter-intelligence communities are not at all favored. As for the special services of the Jewish state, it is precisely thanks to the deep introduction into the Islamist underground that most couriers fall into the networks set up by counterintelligence. Israelis are often recruited by couriers, and they have provided valuable information for years.
MUSLIMS AGAINST ISLAMISTS
It is wrong to assume that informers of special services are recruited exclusively by pressure. Israeli and Palestinian Arabs themselves suffer from Islamist terror, which does not distinguish the human race by religion, nationality, gender, or age. Therefore, no one is surprised by the fact that in the state of the Israeli police, along with Jews, there are a significant number of Arab citizens of the country, both Muslims and Christians, as well as Druze, professing an independent religious belief. Local Circassians occupy a special place in the Israeli army, police and special services. Although compulsory army conscription in their community, like that of the Druze, extends only to young men, often girls also serve in military units, police and security agencies. Suffice it to say that the most famous Israeli scout, the legend of MOSAD, is considered Circassian Amina al-Mufta, a doctor by profession.Moreover, in 2015, the former Minister of the Interior, Gilad Erdán, created a special police department, which serves volunteers from the Muslim Arab community. It was headed by General Jamal Harakush, more recently the only Arab Muslim in the rank of general in the Israeli police. Today there are three Muslim generals in the Israeli police system. More than a thousand privates and officers serve under their command. According to the plans of the Ministry of the Interior, in the next three years 300 – 500 new employees will be enrolled in the created department.
Do not lag behind the Israeli law enforcement officers and the secret services of the state. In Hebrew slang, Israeli and Palestinian Arabs working for the Shabak are called “mashpatim” (short for “Mishatef Peule” - “collaborating”). If someone from the "collaborators" in the Arabic environment is suspected of working for the Shabak, then they, of course, are "recalled", and he and his family move to the Jewish state, receiving state support. Usually, the former "collaborators" settle in Haifa, Acre and the city of Umm al-Fahm, the majority of whose population is represented by Arab citizens of the Jewish state. Some of the Mashpatim, whose names were declassified, created an association designed to help its members adapt to the new conditions.
One of the most famous "mashpatim" should include Musab Hassan Yousef, the eldest son of one of the leaders of the Hamas organization. Thanks to the information supplied by this source, which received the pseudonym Green Prince, several militant cells were exposed. Musab Hassan Yousef prevented dozens of terrorist attacks, warning the Israeli special services about the release of a suicide bomber. In the autobiographical book "Son of Hamas", published in 2010 in the United States (in the literary work of Ron Brakin), the Green Prince admitted to voluntary cooperation with Israeli intelligence agencies, because "he set a goal to save human lives."
One of the bloodiest terrorists in stories Jewish state leader and instructor of militants Yahyu Ayyash, nicknamed “Engineer”, was destroyed thanks to the help of his uncle. A successful construction contractor, Kamil Hamada Aiyash, could not accept the death of dozens of innocent people whose nephew was directly involved in the death of which. The uncle made contact with the agents of Shabak, who transferred to him the latest model of a cell phone with a hinged lid. This unit weighed only 350 grams. When 15 was grabbed with grams of plastic explosives, the Engineer's problem was removed.
ATTENTION AND STANDARD QUESTIONS SAVE LIFE
Airports, train stations and public transport remain the most vulnerable targets in terms of terrorist threats. Israeli security services are paying close attention to the protection of passenger traffic at airports. The Shabak directly identifies the militants and their connections, and specially trained airport security sets the task of preventing the boarding of disguised bombs or weapons. In other words, an unsuspecting passenger should not be a free or unwitting accomplice of terrorists. And here is an example that clearly demonstrates the importance of such an approach.
When 17 on April 1986 of the year at London Heathrow International Airport ended the check-in for El-Al plane on a flight to Tel Aviv, an Israeli security officer called attention to a pregnant woman arriving at one of the last check-in. It was a certain Mary-Anne Murphy, the maid of a London hotel. She answered the standard questions of the guard without hesitation, but she hesitated a little when she was asked if her friends or strangers did not give any items to her luggage. The guard was suspicious, and he summoned colleagues to conduct a thorough search.
A search of X-NUMX-year-old Irish Mary-Anne Murphy was found to have a double bottom. They found explosives, a bomb detonator and an electronic timer set at two and a quarter hours after the plane departed from the airport. At this time, the plane was supposed to be over the Mediterranean Sea between Italy and Greece. In the event of an explosion on board the ship on which the Irish woman intended to fly, all 30 passengers would have died, including, of course, Mary Ann Murphy herself.
Israelis were handed the detained pregnant woman to British police. During the interrogation, it turned out that the bomb was planted by Palestinian Arab Nizar Hindawi, with whom Mary-Anne had a love affair for more than two years and later gave birth to their common daughter. As for Hindawi, he was arrested and sentenced by a British court to 45 years of imprisonment.
SECRET FOR THE FAMILY SEALS
In the first years after the re-establishment of the Jewish state, the leaders of the security agencies developed Operation Ulysses, which involved deep penetration of the agents among the Israeli Arab community. It was planned that an employee of the special service, who agreed to participate in this operation, breaks with his usual environment, gets a different name, a different biography and condemns himself to the refusal of contacts with relatives and friends. He had to impeccably know not only the Arabic language, the Koran, but also to feel the mentality of the society in which he was to live.
Information about such agents and today the secret behind seven seals. According to information recently leaked to the media, only two Israelis, Jews by birth, managed to penetrate the leadership of radical Islamist organizations and for more than 10 years to deliver crucial information. One of these two, who died of cancer at the end of the 60s, named Meir or Uri, was known in the Arab environment as Abed al-Khader, and in Shabak was held under the pseudonym Rook. This agent has managed to break into the leadership of one of the Palestinian radical organizations.
As his wife, a well-known Arab nationalist, later confessed, she never suspected her husband of non-Arab origin. When Rook, he is Abed al-Khader, received permission from his supervisors to become Meir or Uri again, he had to open up to his wife. Oddly enough, her Arab nationalism quickly eroded, and she became a completely respectable Israeli woman. There were no problems with their common children either.
Nevertheless, Ulysses was recognized as an unsuccessful project of the special services. In fact, human life broke for the sake of unclear perspectives that can only be achieved through accidental coincidence. The use of “Mystarvim” (translated as “mowing under the Arabs”) is considered more successful, although in these special forces units, along with Jews, Druze and Circassians, who have undergone appropriate training, also serve Arabs. Appearing to be militants or sympathizing with one or another radical formation, these special forces eventually expose and arrest a considerable number of real terrorists. And the highly experienced Avi Dikhter mentioned above repeatedly explained to his subordinates: “Arrests are a more effective measure against terror than pinpoint liquidations, because the dead are no longer interrogated.”
“RUNNING OR FINISH WITH YOURSELF”
Since the beginning of this century, the internationalization of Islamist terror has entered a new phase of activity. Nevertheless, those wishing to join the militant formations, operating primarily in the Middle East and North Africa, have recently diminished noticeably. But, as they say, the needy for invention is cunning. Trying to somehow involve the radical Islamists in their literal and figuratively dirty deeds, the leaders of terrorist organizations are demanding that their supporters kill the "infidels" in their countries of residence.
Such a recommendation to potential European terrorists is contained in the document titled “Tips for the Immigrant” posted on the Islamic State website (banned in Russia) on behalf of one of this organization’s leaders, Omar Hussein (Abu-Said al-Britani). This document has been studied in detail by researchers at the Israel Institute for Anti-Terrorism Policy (IIAP) of the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya.
Omar Hussein was born and grew up in a family of Muslim immigrants in the suburbs of London. In British college, he began to study political science, working as a security guard. But, having committed a crime of a sexual nature, he fled to Afghanistan, alternately staying in the ranks of various terrorist organizations. After reaching the forefront of the IG, a native of Great Britain (hence the second name and nickname) joined his ranks and soon occupied the dominant position there. Experts from the IIAP pay attention to the following fact: in the “Councils to the Immigrant” emissaries inviting European Islamists suggest that they either run to them, in other words, be recruited to Syria and Libya, or remain on the ground and train under the guidance of former militants living in these countries Caliphate. Trained militants Omar Hussein again confronts a choice: either to look for opportunities to join the armed forces of the "IG", or "undermine themselves in the camp of the infidels."
FRENCH CONTRACTOR SCIENTISTS DON'T MOVE YET
The recent terrorist attacks in France, which have become almost serial, demonstrate the professional failure of the special services of this country. Official Paris began to change attitudes towards terrorism only in 2012, after the terrorist attacks in Toulouse, when Mohammed Merah (1988 – 2012), a native of this city, whose parents arrived from Algeria, shot French soldiers, including Muslims. Then he attacked a Jewish school, killed several children and a teacher. Among other things, the following says about the helplessness of the French counterintelligence: The measure, never distinguished by its law-abidingness, visited such hot spots as Afghanistan and Pakistan, was under the hood of the French special services. He was not arrested, hoping, probably over time, to uncover links with terrorist cells. This fact allowed Israeli military analyst Alex Veksler (by the way, a native of Baku), speaking on a local television channel, to make an assumption that Merah was an agent of the French special services who did not justify the “trust” of his supervisors.
The French counterintelligence, presented by the General Directorate of Internal Security (GUVB), in its current form was formed only in 2014, as a result of serious reorganization of all special services. Formally remaining in the structure of the Ministry of the Interior, the KHIHB is now directly subordinate to the president of the country. France has put before its counterintelligence agents virtually the only task - to win the war on terror. It is clear that such a task can be accomplished only by using the experience gained, for example, in a country like Israel that has been opposed to unsuited radicals for decades. It is not surprising that, on the eve of the Olympic Games, among the companies attracted by Brazil to ensure security, more than 30 were Israeli.