Terror without a face
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עברית (Hebrew)
This is the nightmare of intelligence agencies – previously unknown terror groups.
In a few years, the perpetrators of terrorist attacks in the United States may well be groups that were previously unknown, said Thomas Hegghammer, a fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, at a House hearing July 18.
According to homeland security officials terrorist groups that are currently known can be tracked and countered – and “they’re led by people who have seen what drones can do. This means they are less likely to try systematically attacking the West,” Hegghammer told the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on terrorism, nonproliferation and trade.
If groups that carry out future attacks will be less visible to the intelligence community, it will take vigilance to keep track of the evolving landscape, he said.
Al Qaeda’s core is weak, and its affiliates mainly have local or regional agendas. Hegghammer said they’re also less likely to attack the United States because that could draw a military response that disrupts their local objectives.
But, he cautioned, “never has the future of the jihadi movement seemed more unpredictable to my eyes than it does today.” Hegghammer, who in addition to his position at Stanford is a senior research fellow at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment in Oslo, has been researching Al Qaeda since before 9/11.
He said he believed the peak of organized jihadi attacks against the West had passed, but that another wave of attacks was likely to occur by the end of the decade.
Hegghammer also said the United States shouldn’t use force against terrorist groups that haven’t attacked it, because that would turn military force, or the threat of it, from a deterrent into a provocation.
