Western Intelligence A Step Behind ISIS, According To Expert
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Derek Harvey, a former top intelligence agent and advisor in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, has said that the Western intelligence communities have not fully grasped the threat ISIS poses to the West, failed to understand the organisation’s mode of operation, and as a result have been “playing catch up” in attempts to disrupt the threat posed by ISIS.
The CIA and other intelligence services, he says, wrongly concluded that Syria and Iraq were the main focus of ISIS, with attacks in the West being isolated events not connected with the main organisation. The coordinated attacks in Paris have laid bare the faults in this assumption.
ISIS behaves differently than its predecessor, Al Qaeda, he said. The latter focuses on large, high profile attacks, while ISIS prefers small, numerous attacks whose purpose is to cause fear, chaos, and mayhem in Western society.
“ISIL understands that it doesn’t have to be a complicated and or complex operation like 9/11. ISIL will put a bomb in a taxi and then send the taxi someplace, and driver won’t know he is carrying the explosive,” Harvey said.
Harvey laid fault at the organisational structure of intelligence agencies. The agencies, according to him, put little value on experience, with key positions being occupied by young, inexperienced agents. Some of them have never been to countries they are analysing. The literature and ideology of jihadist organisation has not been received the attention it is due, according to Harvey.
From the 13 November attacks in Paris, it is clear that ISIS seeks to disrupt the friction and blending zones of the target country’s social make-up, with the aim of fostering tension and animosity between Muslims and other religious groups, and between immigrants and local communities.
ISIS employes its propaganda to radicalise and recruit individuals to conduct operations in different countries, and readily accepts them. It is, however, not as quick to come to agreement with other groups. ISIS negotiated with Boko Haram for several months before agreeing to a partnership. This unique approach, starkly different than that of previous jihadist groups, and the support ISIS enjoys among many individuals in the West, make it difficult to identify and track supporters. Intelligence agencies have so far not come up with viable ways to do so.
