Anatomy of a Crime (9/11 WTC Terrorist Attack)

The term "act of terrorism" is probably not comprehensive enough to fully describe what happened in the USA on the morning of September 11th. The number of human victims and the extent of the disaster, form a tragedy exceeding all other terrorism incidents, and similar only to major strikes during a war.

Terrorism has risen to a major international problem during the last 3 decades. In that period we have witnessed many evolutions in the terrorist incidents concerning the profile of the acts, the means employed and the goals as well.

1. Terrorism from individuals, operating under stress and motivated by personal feelings of rage, despair, hatred and frustration.

3. Finally, state terrorism, or terrorist acts emanating from countries. This type of terrorism has been some times vindicated because they have usually occurred during a war.

It has to be noted that nation-states involvement in terrorist activities is not always as forward as in case 3. This applies to countries that provide shelter, training grounds and maybe logistic support to terrorist groups (Sudan, Libya, Iran). Additionally, in the past, the Soviet union and East Germany secret services supported, encouraged and in some cases even formulated terrorist groups according to their master plan to undermine the stability of Western Democracies.

Another significant factor to be taken into account when analyzing terrorism, is the goal(s) of a terrorist act that usually mirror the motives as well:

A. The first type of goals is the one that the terrorist simply has no goal at all. The act is the result of a seriously deranged personality satisfying an inner impulse or a sick fantasy.

B. The second type is the one of criminal terrorism with the sense that the terrorist aims in financial gains through a kidnapping or hostage situation.

C. The third type, the one mainly identified as terrorism, is the one that the terrorists are trying to make a statement in order to promote and advertise certain political-ideological, religious or ethnic causes or ideas.

D. Finally, there are acts that aim in creating chaos, panic and confusion in order to destabilize the social and economic structure of a country or society, and reduce the political resolve of a goverment(s). This is usually achieved through a major, big scale strike, or a series of acts of small or medium scale.

During the last decade we have witnessed several incidents, involving a single, serious deranged individual, concerning invasions into schools and murdering of students and professors. These are clearly acts of terrorism, categorized as 1A (1 because they are executed by seriously unbalanced individuals, A because there is no goal or demands but just a sick and perverse action).

Attacks of Palestinian fanatics in Israel can be categorized as 2Cd since they are actions of small or larger groups, motivated by a mixture of ethnic and religious causes and ideas.

During the 70's and 80's, groups like the Red Brigades or the Red Army, have often instigated terrorist acts (mainly kidnappings) combining a political and ideological statement and financial demands in order to finance their activities (2BC).

There is also another form of terrorism that has been intentionally ignored. During the Battle of England in the 2nd WW, by orders of Hitler himself, the German air force switched targets from the RAF airports and facilities, to London and other major cities in order to damage the moral of the English people and their leadership. A quite similar tactic was applied by the Allied forces during mass bombardments of German cities later in the war (Dresden). An the clearest example are the two actions that forced Japan's surrender. The 2 atomic bombs were used as political weapons to demonstrate to the Japanese people that and further resistance is futile and also apply pressure to the Japanese government. Even if the historians and politicians do not acknowledge those acts as acts of terrorism, it is quire obvious that since the attacks had no military or tactical productive target (pe a vital industry) as their primary objectives, they can be categorized as 3D.

The recent attack against the USA was of an unprecedented magnitude. Maybe for the first time, an act of terrorism presents the characteristics, in terms of target selection, planning, execution and results, of a professionally managed military and intelligence operation.

It is obvious that the targets selection covers 2 basic parameters. The first, typical of terrorist incidents, although unique in magnitude, are the effects of confusion and panic, the attraction of publicity and a loud statement. But the second parameter is very interesting since it concerns hits on strategic targets of enormous importance. The attack against the Pentagon and the alleged and probably true attempts against the White House and the President, besides the psychological impact, are clearly aimed against the chain of command and the disruption of the function of both the political and military leadership.

The planning and management certainly indicate a very carefully and professionally planned and executed operation. Lets see some of the critical aspects of the operation:

1. Technical competence of the terrorists: The most probable line of actions after the terrorists neutralized the flight crews are:

a. Deception of the control tower in order to justify the course change, or immediate disengagement of the aircraft's transponder (air traffic control radars do not track targets as a military radar does, but they "read" a four digit code number that the aircrafts emit and identifies each flight).

b. Feed the flight computer with the coordinates of a point in the proximity of their final target.

c. Disengagement of the flight computer and manual approach, targeting and crash on their final target

Stages a,b can be considered as simple enough, provided one knows the exact location and operation of the specific switches in the cockpit. But stage c, the manual approach, is not as simple. The first difficulty is the visual identification of the target and navigation towards it. The second and most important deals with targeting and maintaining course until the impact. The course of the second aircraft towards the WTC tower, has been recorded from various angles and for a significant distance be fore the impact. The footage clearly indicates that the pilot had to execute a sharp, for a commercial jet, turn, probably because he was going to miss his target. Although the maneuver had to take place at a low altitude in an environment with many high buildings whose volume creates irregular wind streams, it was "successful" and with no apparent altitude loss or stalling.

The most reasonable assumption is that the terrorists flying the airplanes were trained or even experienced pilots. Additionally they probably had to have access to the use of flight simulators for the specific or at least similar types of aircraft and with software imaging the environment they were going to operate into (the city of New York and Washington). Alternatively the training could have taken place with the use of pc games type flight simulators that are far more accessible than professional flight simulators, but with the absolute necessity of some actual level-flying in the specific types of aircrafts in order to become familiar with the cockpit environment.

2. Logistic support: It seems that the terrorists operated under the form of independed cells. An initial problem concerns their entrance into US soil, especially since it has been announced that some of them were known or suspected terrorists. The entrance was probably achieved with the use of forged papers, preferably from countries that would cause the minimum suspicions for issuing a visa, although the possibility of even faked visas should not be totally rejected. And it has to be noted that we are not talking about a couple of men but 40-50 individuals. If some of the initial FBI announcements are accurate some of the terrorists entered the US even 18 months before the operation, and remained as sleeper agents for quite some time. This tactic has only been applied, so far, by intelligence agencies.

Common terrorist practice for cells operating on hostile territory, requires that a secondary group of at least one person, usually unknown even to cell itself, is closely monitoring the cell in order to detect any possible exposure of the group by authorities, and also report to the coordinator the completion of intermediate stages of the operation (pe boarding on the airplanes).

It is very possible that there were more than 40-50 individuals involved in various stages of the operation. The whole operation, from the initial planning stages to the final execution must have lasted from 1 to 3 years, some even say 5. Judging from the result, total surprise, the absence of any leads, leaks or other elements that could help the authorities identify a possible danger, there has been a very effective set of procedures that ensured this result.

At the same time the whole operation required the gathering of sensitive information. For example, there have been reports concerning the suspected attack against the Presidential airplane, according to which the terrorists were using codes and terms known only to secret service personnel.

3. Communications-coordination: The security of communications is the most critical factor for groups operating in hostile environments, since it consists one of the most compromising necessities. The most probable model requires a coordinator operating also inside the enemy territory that is the intermediate and holds contact with all the separate cells and the command center as well. Communications during the "sleeping" period must have been carried through internet resources (web based emails, chat rooms) using predetermined code words or phrases. Communications and coordination in the final stages of the operations also required the use of cell phones and maybe the aircraft's on board pay phones.

One of the most critical points of the operation was the time scheduling in the final stage, in order for all incidents to take place with a minimum time difference before the various agencies become aware of what is really going on and start taking measures (redirection of flights, shutdown of airports).

4. Human resources: This operation involved at least 4 individuals who were intelligent enough to learn how to fly the latest generation commercial jets, the patience and flexibility to remain on enemy soil for quite some time and at the same time were prepared to give their lives and did not hesitate to commit mass murder in an unprecedented scale. From a psychological point of view these characteristics, these two profiles, have a very low level of compatibility. So, statistically, a recruiter needs a very lengthy list of people to look into and come up with the right ones.

The terrorist incidents in the USA can not be compared with a suicide attack somewhere in the Middle East, with a young fanatic that at some point, blinded by rage and hatred, possibly under the influence of some drugs, decides to wear an explosive costume and blow himself and some of those he considers his enemies.

It has to be regarded as an operation carefully and patiently planned, to every single detail. At the same times it requires tremendous human resources, money, technical assistance. One could suggest that it resembles the operation of a national intelligence agency (and a skilled one), or at least with the cooperation of an intelligence agency and not of a single group of fanatics.

The results of the attack can only be compared with those of a major military hit. The magnitude of the strike was such that besides the short term results, shock and panic, one has to expect even more serious long term results concerning both the US people and international relationships. If somebody tries to look into the US past in order to identify similar pictures, excluding natural disasters, he would have to go back to the civil war.

But the most significant of the results, second only to the human victims, is the sense that on the morning of September 11th something new and very big began. Those responsible for this act must have been aware that after the initial shock and numbness there will be a response and the US people would like this response to be proportional to the magnitude of the disaster. A reasonable conclusion would be that the next movement is already planned and maybe even already in motion, possibly even more horrible, maybe even capable to permanently distort the international status quo. For some time the antiterrorist experts were considering the possibility of a terrorist attack with weapons of mass destruction but the terrorists demonstrated a perverted resourcefulness and simplicity. So any prediction over their next steps is extremely difficult.

In any case, we are now existing in a new world. This new world has a common, invisible enemy whom we must all fight, keeping always in mind that each and every terrorist was not borne a terrorist, but at some point of his life became one.

Article written from an overseas and perhaps not altogether pro-US perspective. But the focus on technology and flight simulators is interesting, especially with the recent announcement that Saudi Arabia is talking about building their own training/simulator center. As best I can tell from http://www.bis.doc.gov, these things do not even require an export license to be shipped to Saudi Arabia.

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