Intelligence Failures in Countering Islamic Terrorism: a Comparative Analysis on the Strategic Surprises of the 9/11 and the Pa
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Department of Political Science Master’s Degree in International Relations - Global Studies Chair of Geopolitical Scenarios and Political Risk Intelligence Failures in Countering Islamic Terrorism: A Comparative Analysis on the Strategic Surprises of the 9/11 and the Paris Attacks and the Exceptionality of the Italian Case SUPERVISOR CANDIDATE Prof. Giuseppe Scognamiglio Antonella Camerino Student ID: 639472 CO-SUPERVISOR Prof. Lorenzo Castellani ACCADEMIC YEAR 2019-2020 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………………………5 INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………………………..6 CHAPTER 1: Intelligence: A Theoretical Framework 1.1 – The Intelligence Cycle………………………………………………………………….11 1.2 – Intelligence Failures…………………………………………………………………….19 1.3 – The Strategic Surprises and Surprises Attacks………………………………………….24 1.4 – The Black Swan Theory………………………………………………………………...30 CHAPTER 2: The Case of USA: The Attacks of the 9/11 2.1 – The US Intelligence Community……………………………………………………….35 2.2 – Analysis of a Terrorist Organization: Al-Qaeda………………………………………..43 2.3 – The 9/11 Attacks: Facts, Causes and Consequences……………………………………52 2.4 – The US Involvement in the Middle East: The War on Terror………………………….61 CHAPTER 3: The Case of France: The Paris Attacks of November 13 3.1 – The French Intelligence Community…………………………………………………...73 3.2 – Analysis of a Terrorist Organization: The Islamic State………………………………..80 3.3 – The Paris Attacks of November 13: Facts, Causes and Consequences………………...90 3.4 – The French Involvement in the Middle East: Opération Chammal…………………….98 CHAPTER 4: The Case of Italy: An Exception in the Western Jihadist Panorama 4.1 - The Information System for the Security of the Republic……………………………..106 2 4.2 - Islam in Italy and the Trends of Radicalization………………………………………..116 4.3 - Why no Jihadist Attacks occurred in Italy?....................................................................125 4.4 - The Italian Involvement in the Middle East: The Unknown of Libya………………...135 CONCLUSIONS………………………………………………………………………………….147 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………………...153 SITOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………………………...174 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY………………………………………………………………………177 3 «No religion is responsible for terrorism. People are responsible for violence and terrorism.» Barack Obama 4 ABSTRACT The goal of this thesis is to explain why intelligence systems sometimes fail. The attacks of September 11, 2001 against the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington and the attacks in Paris on the evening of November 13, 2015 demonstrated the limitations and weaknesses of intelligence agencies and of both the United States and France. The intelligence process is not a perfect process and is very often subject to malfunctions that expose the systems within which they operate to risks, such as failures and strategic surprises. Faced with a new threat such as international Islamic terrorism, Western national security systems have found themselves unprepared to fight a new type of war against some non-state actors such as Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. This asymmetric war, which uses new strategies and tactics, also depends on the degree of involvement of the affected countries in conflicts in the Middle East and on internal social causes due to phenomena of radicalization. Italy proves to be an exception in the Western jihadist landscape, due to some internal and external characteristics, not being hit by any attack of Islamic origin so far. 5 INTRODUCTION The protection of national security is one of the most important prerogatives of a democratic state, which is committed to protecting the integrity of its territory, the safety of its population and the maintenance of its civil and political institutions. In this sense, the concept of national security also coincides with the concept of defense and is aimed at protecting the institutions and the founding principles of democracy, without which there could not even be freedom. Security and freedom are therefore the cornerstones on which the rule of law finds its foundation. National security is thus a precious asset for the State, which is concerned with preserving it through the intelligence activity carried out by its own security apparatuses and agencies. They deal with the collection, maintenance, analysis, processing of data and dissemination of news aimed at preventing internal and external threats to the State and destabilizing activities of any kind. Intelligence agencies, better known as Secret Services, are organizations headed by a State whose work is covered by secrecy, and which operate to pursue the safeguarding of the national interest and the maintenance of national security. These are both civil and military entities that report directly to the government of a State to which they belong. These agencies operate secretly both abroad (espionage activities), and within the territory of the State to which they belong (in this case we are talking about counter-espionage activities). A peculiar role assumed by intelligence agencies in recent years is that of counter-terrorism, that is, the set of strategies, tactics and techniques aimed at fighting and preventing terrorism understood as subversive activities that make use of violence for political or religious purposes.1 The counter-terrorism strategy is therefore a government plan that uses resources and instruments of national power to neutralize terrorists, their organizations, their networks in such a way as to make them unable to use violence to instill fear among the civilian population and force governments to act according to the demands and objectives of the terrorists.2 However, intelligence work and security services are not infallible systems: despite the high professionalism and competence of its agents and the resources that a country possesses, the information produced is not always useful or sufficient to predict and prevent an attack. The United States of America is an example of this vulnerability, despite the fact it is an economic, political and military superpower in the world, the winner of two World Wars and the only winning power of the Cold War, after the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the implosion of the Soviet Union. Twice, in fact, the United States has suffered heavy attacks from an external enemy, which have deeply shocked public opinion due to their gravity, spectacularity, but above all due to the fact of having been 1 Virginia P. Fortna, Do Terrorists Win? Rebels’ Use of Terrorism and Civil War Outcomes, Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 519-556. 2 Dan E. Stigall, Chris Miller, Lauren Donnatucci, The 2018 U.S. National Strategy for Counterterrorism: A Synoptic Overview, American University National Security Law Brief, 2019. 6 conducted on US soil without being somehow intercepted by the own security agencies: the attack on Pearl Harbor, conducted by the Japanese Military Air Force on December 7, 1941, and the tragedy of September 11, 2001, of an Islamic origin, have shown that it is not entirely impossible to circumvent American intelligence and Security Services. In particular, these two events are known to be the greatest intelligence failures in history, destined to set a trend for state intelligence agencies around the world and for those who want to approach to the field of security studies in the context of international relations. It should be noted that at the international level there is no universally valid definition of “terrorism”, since States and other actors of the international community are at odds in recognizing what terrorism is and what characteristics it has. In fact, the term could be used biased by States and non-state groups to accuse or denounce political opponents of subversive actions to public order or a threat to collective security.3 A definition of “terrorism” officially recognized by the States of the international community would lead to legal repercussions that could be controversial from a formal and substantive point of view. However, in the academic field, several scholars have tried to give a definition of “terrorism” to facilitate the research methodology. The American professor Bruce Hoffman, lecturer at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. and one of the world’s leading experts in the studies of terrorism, argues that terrorism is distinguishable from other crimes when the actions perpetrated4: • have mainly political aims and motives; • are violent or threaten to use violence; • are designed to have far-reaching psychological repercussions beyond the victim or the immediate target; • are led by an organization with an identifiable chain of command or by a conspiratorial cell (whose members do not wear uniforms or identifying insignia) and are perpetrated by a subnational group or non-state entity. Given that there are different forms of terrorism, and that political violence is used to achieve the most disparate objectives, this thesis analyzes the failures of intelligence in countering Islamic terrorism, and therefore a religious type of terrorism. After the end of the Cold War, a geopolitical scenario had emerged in which the United States remained the sole hegemonic power of the international order, and liberal democracy and the values of the West seemed to be the only ideological alternative left for the nations of the world that emerged 3 Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, Columbia University Press, New York, 1998, p.23. 4 Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, 2 ed., Columbia University Press, New York, 2006, p. 40. 7 from the yoke