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I thought this was the case. There would be less and less attacks if there was an effective intelligence gathering service. You can't just rely on the people to provide you intelligence, they may be scared, they may not want to turn in their family members. Security needs to rely on multiple sources of defence. Security isn't just one layer, it has to be multiple layers. For example a house cannot just rely on it's neighbor to report to them if their house is being broken into. They need to put in cameras, alarms, and use other security strategies on top of relying his neighbor advice. Notice you secure a house using multiple methods not just rely one method.
Puntland needs a multi-layered approach. We need to stop saying 'the people' must work with us and leave it at that. That is just one layer, you need agents everywhere in the cities, in the districts, in the mosques, tea shops, markets. Tell each agent his objective, for example an agent in the mosque will listen to any radical teachings, anti government messages, locals being groomed. However in the tea shop or the district an agent objective can be totally different, he will join in the conversation between the locals, listen for any suspicious planning, spot anyone who is isolating themselves from community. Where-as an agent in the market place you tell him to follow suspicious transfers of money, follow suspicious purchases of arms, explosive equipment, etc. The key objective must be 'preventation' their goal should be to stop an attack occurring before it occurs. When people plan attacks, it takes weeks, months before it actually happens. Their goal should be at all times to monitor and then foil. Sometimes it's better to wait till your target takes you to bigger fish, like higher members in the network, unknown religious teachers, suppliers, trainers, corruption within your own security forces who turn a blind eye because it is their 'tol', etc.
I honestly think Puntland can defeat this menace of terrorism, terrorists are not people that fall from the sky. They live among you. They need to talk to people, go to mosque, go to market place, go to school, etc. Even when they are planning attacks, they need to get weapons, ammunition, set up get away.
We must have a plan where terrorists take 1 step, we have to be two steps ahead and are waiting for them from every angle. Our recruitment of agents must also be very good. For example, we want chat chewing agents in the tea shops so they can fit in and listen to conversations. We want religious agents in mosques so they can listen in on the teachings and fit in with the crowd and don't stand out. We want financial graduates working in hawalas getting agent salaries to monitor suspicious payments. We want traders as agents in the market place where guns, ammunition, devices to make explosives are. It needs to also be multi clan and each agent sent to his own people. We must warn the agents if an attack occurrs and an investigation is carried out and it is proven they failed in their area of expertise or the attack could've of been stopped where they were working, they will be held accountable, because sometimes they may not want to foil an attack because it is their friend, family member, or tribes man. So we need some sort of punishment in place for agents who do this and they must be told it will be found out because once an explosion, assasination, attacks occur and it is determined it could've been stopped from their area of operation, they will take the fall for it.
I would even put agents inside the government, security sectors, to see if there is a security breach happening inside our own wing. In this age of terrorism, there is no way to stop an attack if we don't have 'eyes' in all sections of our society.
Puntland needs a multi-layered approach. We need to stop saying 'the people' must work with us and leave it at that. That is just one layer, you need agents everywhere in the cities, in the districts, in the mosques, tea shops, markets. Tell each agent his objective, for example an agent in the mosque will listen to any radical teachings, anti government messages, locals being groomed. However in the tea shop or the district an agent objective can be totally different, he will join in the conversation between the locals, listen for any suspicious planning, spot anyone who is isolating themselves from community. Where-as an agent in the market place you tell him to follow suspicious transfers of money, follow suspicious purchases of arms, explosive equipment, etc. The key objective must be 'preventation' their goal should be to stop an attack occurring before it occurs. When people plan attacks, it takes weeks, months before it actually happens. Their goal should be at all times to monitor and then foil. Sometimes it's better to wait till your target takes you to bigger fish, like higher members in the network, unknown religious teachers, suppliers, trainers, corruption within your own security forces who turn a blind eye because it is their 'tol', etc.
I honestly think Puntland can defeat this menace of terrorism, terrorists are not people that fall from the sky. They live among you. They need to talk to people, go to mosque, go to market place, go to school, etc. Even when they are planning attacks, they need to get weapons, ammunition, set up get away.
We must have a plan where terrorists take 1 step, we have to be two steps ahead and are waiting for them from every angle. Our recruitment of agents must also be very good. For example, we want chat chewing agents in the tea shops so they can fit in and listen to conversations. We want religious agents in mosques so they can listen in on the teachings and fit in with the crowd and don't stand out. We want financial graduates working in hawalas getting agent salaries to monitor suspicious payments. We want traders as agents in the market place where guns, ammunition, devices to make explosives are. It needs to also be multi clan and each agent sent to his own people. We must warn the agents if an attack occurrs and an investigation is carried out and it is proven they failed in their area of expertise or the attack could've of been stopped where they were working, they will be held accountable, because sometimes they may not want to foil an attack because it is their friend, family member, or tribes man. So we need some sort of punishment in place for agents who do this and they must be told it will be found out because once an explosion, assasination, attacks occur and it is determined it could've been stopped from their area of operation, they will take the fall for it.
I would even put agents inside the government, security sectors, to see if there is a security breach happening inside our own wing. In this age of terrorism, there is no way to stop an attack if we don't have 'eyes' in all sections of our society.
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Police/Military only respond when something happens, they do not prevent attacks from happening. Intelligence officers prevent an attack from happening and pass on the intelligence to the police or military. This is what is lacking badly in Puntland. The intelligence officers should never make the arrest or expose their identity, they will pass this information to their operation commander who will talk with police or military about an imminent attack and to send in our law enforcement to stop it.
"Puntland has no intelligence" is also an accurate title
PL does have an intelligence agency and a successful one at that so this police chief who spends most time traveling around qurbaha don't know what he is talking about. In the past the agency infiltrated cells with agents but ever since the karbash in Baargaal terrorists don't trust PLers in their ranks therefor cells operating from outside PL are almost impossible to infiltrate.
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The terrorist employ many strategies but currently their strategy is to recruit outside of Puntland and bring them in to carry out attacks. What we want is a set up checkpoints basically with agents inside key areas where terrorists are likely to use. For example they will definitely go to the market place for goods and services. Have an agent there monitoring new customers buying goods that are suspicious like ammo, explosive device materials, etc. Have an agent in the villages or districts monitoring new people renting out properties or staying at hotels for short periods. Notice your basically placing your agents strategically in areas where terrorists are going to have to come and use.
Now not everyone who rents a property is a terrorist but if that same person is buying suspicious goods from the markets, having unusual funds transfers in the market place, you start to see a problem occurring. Those people u put under surveillance and let them lead you into their complex web of networks untill you crack it at the highest level or at least before an attack is about to occur. We don't need to penetrate them to know their plans. We just need to agents to be on stand-by mode looking for certain behaviours in people through-out different sectors of the communities.
For example we could use road technologies like vehicle scanning machines at major towns. They only going to attack major towns, they will not go into smaller areas because the network there is very tight and impenetrable. Notice how they had to invade suuj and garmaal? they know they can't hide among them people as insurgents because they will question them intensively what they are doing here!!!
We need a strategy I believe, we need information sources not only from the public but from government agents among the people who are not identifiable. We then can give our police and military intelligence sources from reliable sources.
Now not everyone who rents a property is a terrorist but if that same person is buying suspicious goods from the markets, having unusual funds transfers in the market place, you start to see a problem occurring. Those people u put under surveillance and let them lead you into their complex web of networks untill you crack it at the highest level or at least before an attack is about to occur. We don't need to penetrate them to know their plans. We just need to agents to be on stand-by mode looking for certain behaviours in people through-out different sectors of the communities.
For example we could use road technologies like vehicle scanning machines at major towns. They only going to attack major towns, they will not go into smaller areas because the network there is very tight and impenetrable. Notice how they had to invade suuj and garmaal? they know they can't hide among them people as insurgents because they will question them intensively what they are doing here!!!
We need a strategy I believe, we need information sources not only from the public but from government agents among the people who are not identifiable. We then can give our police and military intelligence sources from reliable sources.
http://safewaysystem.en.made-in-chi...canner-and-Cargo-Vehicle-Scanning-System.html
We could start with just having one of these in Galkayo on the border, we could also use it around the Bosaso area!!! These will be our external monitoring of vehicles, trucks using our road. The terrorist may resort to bringing in explosive devices already made from another region, this will be hugely important to stop them in their tracks!!!!
Again where you place these will be important also. You dont want them be able to use the side of the roads to get around it, so you want to place it in area where the side of the roads are to rocky or difficult for vehicles to move!!! That's just addressing the technology to support you!!! Imagine then we also had ears-eyes of well trained plain clothed agents around key areas like market, village, schools, mosques identifying suspicious behavior patterns!!! Then you bring in the police/military that now responds to 'credible' intelligence coming in to stop an attack from happening!!! With time and as experience grows and we include a lessons learned from attacks that 'slipped thru' by identifying where we failed, these guys are going to be out of business and will go else where to conduct their activities as they won't trust the 'success' rate of their mission!!!
We could start with just having one of these in Galkayo on the border, we could also use it around the Bosaso area!!! These will be our external monitoring of vehicles, trucks using our road. The terrorist may resort to bringing in explosive devices already made from another region, this will be hugely important to stop them in their tracks!!!!
Again where you place these will be important also. You dont want them be able to use the side of the roads to get around it, so you want to place it in area where the side of the roads are to rocky or difficult for vehicles to move!!! That's just addressing the technology to support you!!! Imagine then we also had ears-eyes of well trained plain clothed agents around key areas like market, village, schools, mosques identifying suspicious behavior patterns!!! Then you bring in the police/military that now responds to 'credible' intelligence coming in to stop an attack from happening!!! With time and as experience grows and we include a lessons learned from attacks that 'slipped thru' by identifying where we failed, these guys are going to be out of business and will go else where to conduct their activities as they won't trust the 'success' rate of their mission!!!
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