Past as Prologue The Evolution of Domestic Counterterrorism Policy in the United States, United Kingdom, and Spain in Response to Political Terrorism

Masters Tutorial 8/13/2012

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Table of Contents Introduction .......................................................................................................................................................... 2

The Definition ...................................................................................................................................................... 6

Counterterrorism Policy Components ................................................................................................. 19

Illustrative Examples .................................................................................................................................... 23

The United States ..................................................................................................................................23

The United Kingdom ............................................................................................................................37

Spain ..........................................................................................................................................................54

Lessons Learned? ............................................................................................................................................ 66

Appendix 1: The 3 Rules of Counterterrorism Policy .................................................................. 74

Appendix 2: Acronyms .................................................................................................................................. 75

Bibliography ...................................................................................................................................................... 76

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“Virtue, without which terror is fatal; terror, without which virtue is impotent. Terror

is nothing but prompt, severe, inflexible justice; it is therefore an emanation of virtue. It is less

a special principle than a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our

country's most pressing needs.”

- Maximilien Robespierre; The Political Philosophy of Terror, 1794

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It is hard to imagine a world where the events of September 11, 2001 did not

happen. More than 10 years later, it still impacts lives on a daily basis and there is no

reversing the destruction reaped at the hands of the men that planned and executed the

attack. This was a show of contemporary political terror. Maximilien Robespierre, who

talked on the subject of terror, as used by the state during the French Revolution in the

1790s, had extolled the use of it as an emanation of virtue. One wonders would he would

say now given how much it has changed since then.

It is that very nature of change that drives the study of counterterrorism in political

science. Political violence, including political terrorism, is unlike any other subfield because

in that it deals so directly with the finality of life and actively tries to outwit it. Included in

the subfield are areas ranging from psychology and microbiology to disaster response and

foreign policy, but this paper will examine with the use of policy in outwitting terrorism.

It is important to note here that terrorism is not something that can be beaten or

completely wiped out. There will never be a Victory Over Terrorism day, like there was a

Victory Over Japan day at the end of World War II. Terrorism will continue to evolve. The

challenge of counterterrorism is to predict that evolution and try to stifle it as much as

possible.

The question this paper seeks to answer is why and how a country responds

domestically to an act of political terror on its own soil. The why will examine the history of

country through a specific political terror phenomenon and how the ontology gained

through those experiences shaped its response to a modern political terrorism attack.

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The how will examine the specific policy and institutional changes since in the

response to one group in the past and one attack in the present Three countries will serve

as illustrative examples : The United States, The United Kingdom, and Spain. These three

countries were chosen because of the long engagement between the central governments

and domestic political terrorist groups in the past and the large events that happened in

2001, 2005, and 2004, respectively. While many other countries may have served as

appropriate cases studies, his paper sought to focus on European and American responses

because they offer some of the most stable political climates to judge change in.

This question arises because of the constant need to evaluate current policies and

gain fresh perspectives. An unfortunate reality of the subject is that within a couple years of

being published, laws can change and invalidate claims and predictions. This is not a bad

thing, but it does call for an evolving study.

Section I will explore the definition of terrorism. The struggle to define it is often as

hard if not harder than the struggle against it and if there is a failure to define, then there is

a failure to defend. Section II will discuss the three rules of counterterrorism. Section III

will go on to cover the three illustrative examples mentioned earlier. Each of those will

include a history of terror in the country and its policy response to a modern event. Finally,

Section IV will evaluate each illustrative example’s adherence to the three rules and offer

the opinion of the author. This section will deal more with the changes seen and not the

related outcomes. It will show the how of the change and not if that change was successful.

Two appendices are also included. Appendix 1 is a list of the three rules; Appendix 2 is a list

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of acronyms used throughout the paper. The ultimate goal of this paper is to give a holistic

view to both the nature of the problem and the way in which it is dealt with.

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I. The Definition

The following exchange took place between Ned Walker, then Assistant to the

Undersecretary for Middle East Affairs at the U.S. State Department and Lee Hamilton, then

Chairman of the subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East, as they discussed the

background to the talks between the United States and Palestinian Liberation Organization

(PLO):

Hamilton: Well, how do you define terrorism, do you define it in terms of noncombatance?

Walker: The State Department definition which is included in the terrorism report annually defines it in terms of politically motivated attacks on noncombatant targets.

Hamilton: So an attack on a military unit in Israel will not be terrorism? Walker: It does not necessarily mean that it would not have a very major impact on

whatever we were proposing to do with the PLO. Hamilton: I understand that, but it would not be terrorism. Walker: An attack on a military target. Not according to the definition. Now wait a

minute; that is not quite correct. You know attacks can be made on military targets which clearly are terrorism. It depends on the individual circumstance.

Hamilton: Now wait a minute. I thought that you just gave me the State Department definition.

Walker: Noncombatant is the terminology, not military or civilian. Hamilton: All right. So any attack on a noncombatant could be terrorism? Walker: That is right. Hamilton: And a noncombatant could include military? Walker: Of course. Hamilton: It certainly would include civilian, right? Walker: Right. Hamilton: But an attack on a military unit would not be terrorism? Walker: It would depend on the circumstances. Hamilton: And what are those circumstances? Walker: I do not think it will be productive to get into a description of the various

terms and conditions under which we are going to define an act by the PLO as terrorism (Committee on Foreign Affairs, 1989: 66).

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With the amount of time given to the subject of terrorism, it can be easy to assume

that there is a standard definition. This, as shown above, is far from the truth. Entire books

have been written trying to boil it down to a few sentences that act as a grand definition.

But, definitions or statements that are short are not necessarily easier to interpret or apply

to a particular circumstance and definitions that are over-specific are not helpful either.

Nonetheless, this paper and the larger discipline do deserve some sort of definition; if not

for the ability to categorize terrorist acts as being such, but so that there is some measure

of a shared jumping off point. And while starting at the same point is a small step, it is an

important one.

This section will look at three aspects of the word terrorism, starting with its history.

Terrorism is not the same as it was 218 years ago when Maximilien Robespierre remarked

on the political philosophy of terror during the French Revolution. Neither will it be the

same 218 years in the future. It evolves. Understanding this evolution will glean some

insight into why states react the way they do to present day terrorism. The second part will

cover what a terrorist act is. Criminalizing the acts of terrorism is one of the most widely

used counterterrorism practices, but if ‘one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s

terrorist’, how do you decide what a terrorist act is? To answer this question, it is

important to look at universally acknowledged criminal/unacceptable acts as well as

distinguish terrorism from guerilla warfare or criminal acts. The final part will offer a

definition which will act as the base for the rest of the paper. The goal of this section is not

to offer a grand definition that can be used for any and all purposes, but rather a simple,

appropriate definition with which to contextualize the events and responses in the United

States, U.K. and Spain.

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So, why start with history? After a three video break down of the French Revolution,

New York Times best-selling author John Green says, “And to answer the inevitable student

question of why do we even have to study this stuff, that would be my first answer. The

past isn’t past; it’s still shaping the present” (Vlogbrothers, 2010b). Any good definition

takes history into account, and terrorism is no different.

Terrorism is one of the world’s oldest professions. Historians often identify the

Sicarii and the Zealots, Jewish groups opposed to the Roman occupation, as the earliest

practitioners. It would crop up again through the 8th to 14th centuries with the Assassins, a

small Islamic splinter group based in Persia who engaged in a slew of killings and sabotage

(Bosco, 2006). This sort of terrorism, however, is not the base of present day terrorism,

which comes, instead, from the French Revolution.

To oversimplify the narrative, the people of France were starving, the country was

in a massive sovereign debt, and the citizenry was not content to let a rich King sit on the

throne while they starved. A series of agreements and breaking of those agreements lead to

the regular use of terror by anarchists as a means to change their situation. (This should

sound familiar because it is reminiscent of modern day terrorism. This integration of

history into modern day terrorism will happen many times as the methodology of

terrorism evolves over the next 218 years.) The conclusion of those acts of anarchism often

ended in many lives lost and a different form of government in power ranging from a

constitutional monarchy “to a country where a bunch of armed peasant women could

functionally put the King under house arrest. A country where no one quite knew who was

running the show and everyone had guns” (Vlogbrothers, 2010a).

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Terror, at this time, was a positive term associated with anarchy of the people. The

pinnacle of this type of terror came during the Maximilien Robespierre, leader of The

Committee of Public Safety and orchestrator of the Régime de la Terreur. At the beginning

of his regime, he saw what his was doing as right. He was helping the cause and killing

those who he thought were loyal to the King. As seen his quote above, Robespierre saw the

systematic use of terror as a vital part and virtue of the revolution. Terror tactics were

meant to be a saving grace. Nonetheless, there were those that disagreed and chastised him

saying he let loose “thousands of [his] Hell hounds called Terrorists” (Hoffman, 2003). The

well-meaning terror meant to set the people free from the bondage of monarchy had

changed. At the time of his beheading in 1974, Robespierre had overseen the guillotining

of over 16,000 people, many of whom had no direct involvement with the revolution

(Vlogbrothers, 2010b).

In the first of five changes, terror had morphed to include the abuse of office and/or

power, often with criminal implications, but still of a revolutionary context. This fever of

revolution would soon spread to countries across the U.K. and later after one more change

in definition, to Russia (Hoffman, 2003). As will soon be shown through the next four

changes, the modern day idea of terrorism did not disavow its historical roots; they are still

part of its meaning.

The second change would add a vital new part to terrorism. On June 28, 1914 after

the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand terror no longer meant revolution, but

targeted assassinations as a vehicle with which to achieve a political aim. However, the

spirit of terrorism as an integral part of revolution was not lost. Russian anarchists

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received the title of terrorist willingly and favored assassination of Russian leaders as a

preferred tactic. “The movement punishes only those who are really responsible for the evil

deed” (Bosco, 2006). In an effort to stifle these blatant attacks against the state, the ill-fated

League of Nations attempted to define the problem. If they could define it, they could

punish it, or even better, end it Terrorism was now a global threat and was recognized by

many states as a threat from their citizenry. The result was this definition of an act of

terror: “criminal acts directed against a State and intended or calculated to create a state of

terror in the minds of particular persons, or a group of persons or the general public”

(Bosco, 2006). Their definition was not inherently bad or good, but given that only a few

countries signed the treaty it was never put into effect as an enforceable definition.

The next two changes would happen after World Wars I & II. In the 1930s, the threat

of terror changed from citizenry directed towards governments and leaders to totalitarian

leaders or states using terror against their citizens. This was not unlike the Régime de la

Terreur of revolutionary France. Classic examples of this type of terror include Fascist Italy,

Nazi Germany, and Stalinist Russia. These states did not see themselves as carrying out

terrorist acts; they truly believed what they were doing was right and necessary. Stalin

transformed Russia’s government into an organ of coercion, enforcement and repression.

The spirit of revolution that Russians were fighting for a decade before was lost and they

had become the very thing they were fighting against. This type of state terror has never

gone away and is correctly associated with countries today.

The fourth change post World War II would see a lot of similarities to past

incarnations. Terrorism regained its revolutionary roots that it still maintains today. In the

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1940s and 1950s, the struggle against colonialism offered the perfect stage for new

revolutions. On July 22, 1946 explosives placed in the King David Hotel in Jerusalem

exploded, killing 91 and injuring 45. The bombings were directed at the British military

command and the British Criminal Investigation Division which, at the time of the bombing,

was housing information about Jewish Agency operations. This included information about

intelligence activities in Arab countries (“The bombing of”, 2012). At the same time, in

Algeria, militants waged a destructive and bloody campaign against French authorities that

included frequent assassinations, torture, and the brutalization of civilians (Bosco, 2006).

This type of revolutionary terrorism continued on through the 1970s and would

include organizations like the PLO, the Basque Homeland and Freedom (ETA) and Weather

Underground (WU) in the United States. In November of 1974, Yassir Arafat addressed the

UN defending his choice of methods, that to many, included terrorism: “The difference

between the revolutionary and the terrorist lies in the reason for which each fights. For

whoever stands by a just cause and fights for freedom and liberation of his land by

invaders, the settlers and the colonists, cannot possibly be called a terrorist” (Hoffman,

2003). The application of the word terrorism is subjective and while not all those that

employ terror as a tactic are terrorists, all terrorist employ terror as a tactic.

Looking back on past incarnations of terrorism, this particular type has elements

from the French Revolution and the Russian anarchists. Each thought that was they were

doing was right and each had a specific, well thought-out agenda. As with any other

evolution, this past never completely disappears, instead it is part of the present.

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The final change isn’t so much a change as a branching off. In the 1980s terrorism

came to denote a broader, less distinct phenomenon and was a way to destabilize the West.

During this time the ‘Terror Network’ was born. Network here, not only refers to a network

of different terrorist organizations or cells, but in the way they branched out. Narco-

terrorism in the 1990s brought strategic alliances between criminal and terrorist groups.

This short history of the terrorism and the changes it went through shows an

important fact mentioned many times, but it worth mentioning again: terrorism evolves.

Without an understanding of the reasons for those changes, defining it becomes and

impossible guessing game of what to include without any substantive thought involved.

The reasons that the starving peasants of France rose up against the monarchy should have

been able help colonizing nations think through motivation as they fought against terrorist

organization in the 1950s. There is always something that can be learned from the history

that can be applied to a current problem. But even with the understanding of where it came

from does not offer an appropriate definition of terrorism because there are simply too

many different motivations; this is not to say, however, that motivation will play no part in

the definition.

The next logical step taken by many governments and scholars is instead of trying to

define it through motivations, of which there are too many and are extremely subjective, is

to instead try and define terrorism through its actions. The many incarnation of terrorism

throughout history share some common tactics or crime that are reasonably punishable.

The questions involved in how to distinguish terrorism include how terrorism different to

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guerilla warfare and how is terrorism different from criminal acts? If it is possible to

determine what it isn’t, it becomes easier to determine what it is.

First, distinguishing terrorism from guerilla warfare or organized crime is

important because they can be unintentionally interchanged. Criminal acts tend to be more

egotistical than guerilla warfare or terrorism while guerilla warfare is typically not

preoccupied with acquiring money in response to actions. It is expressed in the Venn

diagram below:

Fig. 1.1

Guerilla warfare or criminal action can be tools of terrorism, but only if they meet

the standards of s terrorist act. Those distinctions make terrorism what it is and distinguish

it from an assassination or loose political extremist movement. Of the four points in

terrorism, the first, third, and fifth are the most important and without them, any particular

* denotes rarity

Diagram is the creation of the author using information from Hoffman’s 2003 ‘Defining Terrorism’ chapter.

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act will not qualify as political terrorism. These three points come from the history of

terrorism discussed above. Many scholars and governments would argue that motivation

has no place in the definition because it can present a ‘gap problem’. The ‘gap problem’ is

when terrorism is defined so loosely that a legal loop hole can be exploited which can offer

an excuse for terrorist organizations. This is a large reason why motivation does not play a

large role in definitions. But, as mentioned above, while it might not be the most important

part of the definition, it does distinguish it from criminal or guerilla warfare activities.

Fear, as mentioned in the third bullet is either threatened fear or realized fear.

Threatened fear refers to fear gained from the knowledge that a certain act can or will

happen. This is often present after a terrorist attack. For example after 9/11, flying, to

many, seems like impossibility. Customers might have known in their reasoned mind that

they were safe, but that nagging feeling that someone might hijack their plane was not

uncommon. Realized fear, on the other hand, is fear during the act of terrorism. The fear

experienced by survivors of a hostage situation during the attack can be used by terrorists

to manipulate them to change viewpoints or promise to complete a task. Once the situation

is over and the terrorists are gone, realized fear morphs into threated fear. If it can happen

once, it can happen again.

Now having looked at the history of terrorism and why it is different from other

destructive acts, it is time to decide on a definition. All the while remembering at the same

time that the terrorism defined today is different than the terrorism defined yesterday or

tomorrow and that it is not an enemy, but a method.

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Attempting to construct a definition by studying what others have used proves to be

an enormous task. Every agency, government, or group has their own definition engineered

to meet their specific needs. Trying to find a thread of commonality in all that is hard.

Mentioned in 2003 in Hoffman’s chapter in Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Understanding

the New Security Environment titled “Defining Terrorism”, Alex P. Schmid and Albert J.

Jongman, et all, studied 109 different definitions of terrorism and found the top six words:

Element Frequency (%) 1. Violence, force 83.5 2. Political 65 3. Fear, terror emphasized 51 4. Threat 47 5. (Psychological) effects and (anticipated) reactions 41.5 6. Victim-target differentiation 37.5

(Hoffman, 2003)

By this account, there is some mutual understanding of what should be included in a

definition. All the important elements are there and they make sense given the five changes

in terrorism’s history. Of the 109 definitions studied and subsequent attempts by

governments, agencies, and scholars, the U.N. Security Council in 2004 came the closest to a

definition that takes both history and methods into account while remaining neutral in

motivation:

“[Terrorism is] any act intended to cause death or serious injury

to civilians or taking of hostages with the purpose to provoke a state of terror,

intimidate a population or compel a government or an international

organization to do or to abstain from doing any act.” (Bosco, 2006)

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This definition has all the important and distinctive aspects of terrorism; some type

of political coercion, the threat of fear through intimidation, and specific mention of the

type of target. But why not use a country-specific definition for each of the illustrative

examples ? First, it would be not be proper to compare different countries using different

definitions. The UN Security Council’s 2004 definition offers a necessary level of neutrality.

It is not subject to the priorities or policies of a particular state government because it was

agreed upon by many countries.

An example of a definition suited specifically to an agency is the definition used by

the Department of Defense (DOD) in the U.S. It reads:

“The unlawful use of – or threatened use of – force or violence

against individuals or property to coerce governments or societies, often to

achieve political religious, or ideological objectives” (The US Department of

Defense, 2012).

The DOD definition is, arguably, very close to the UN Security Council definition.

Both include the use or threatened use of force against individuals and both have political

change or lack thereof as an end. But the largest difference is that the DOD specifically

mentions motivations and offers up a chance to take advantage of the ‘gap problem.’ Since

the DOD does not specifically mention social motivations, it can be argued that if a group is

socially motivated and using terrorist means, they cannot be a terrorist group because their

motivation does not fit into the definition. Motivation neutrality proves to be the clincher

here.

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Also unlike the DOD definition, the UN Security Council definition is able to evolve

alongside what it is defining, and does not suffer from the ‘gap problem’ mentioned earlier.

When motivations for using terrorism change, the DOD definition will have to change with

it. The UN Security Council definition, since it does not mention motivations, it able to adapt

more readily. No definition is completely infallible, but this particular one is not riddled

with the holes of others.

Now knowing what the definition of terrorism is allows for the quick explanation of

different levels of terrorism. This is different from the different acts of terrorism

(bombings, hostage-taking, etc…). Scholars and governments relish the opportunity to

apply labels so it is not surprising that a few common labels have gained traction. Elisabeth

Symeonidou-Kastanidou of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki divides it simply into

State and sub-State terrorism. State terrorism essentially entails “the use of violence by the

organs of the State or by groups related to it; such use of violence is normally directed

against the State’s own population or against the population of some occupied territory,

aiming largely at the extermination of the political opponents of the government and, in

due course, at the suppression of the resistance put up by the people.”

Sub-State terrorism acts as a catch-all for everything else, but can be divided into

four categories: I. Cases of resistance against dictatorships, aiming at re-establishing

democracy or at replacing the regime with a new dictatorship, which harkens back to the

French Revolution, II. Self-determination of national liberation movements, aiming at

achieving the autonomy of certain regions or the creation of new countries, for example,

the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in England or ETA in Spain, III. ‘imported terrorism’, i.e.

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terrorism generated in one country and directed against the government of another

country, the attack in Munich during the 1968 Olympic games, or al-Qaeda are classic

examples here, IV. Use of violence for the purpose of enforcing an alternative political

proposal within a democracy, which was popular in the 1970s throughout Europe, in

particular the ‘Red Army’ in Germany or ‘17th November’ in Greece (Symeonidou-

Kastanidou, 2004). Sub-State terrorism includes both one-State or international terrorism.

This definitional journey is vital in counterterrorism. It is not enough to employ the

late Justice Potter Stewart’s approach towards pornography: that “it is unnecessary to go to

great lengths to define it, because one knows it when one sees it” and simply apply it to

terrorism. As shown in the earlier exchange between Ned Walker and Lee Hamilton, to just

figure it out on the fly doesn’t work. Justice Stewart’s assertion is a cop-out of the lazy or

unsure when it comes to counterterrorism. A government or international organization is

useless in a counterterrorism capacity unless it can figure out and define what it is trying to

prevent. “Terrorism is a problem of what people do rather than who they are or what they

are trying to achieve” (Pillar, 2003). In order to punish, protect, and prevent, a body must

have an understanding of why and how terrorism formed. The next section will look at

three countries and how they have used history as pretext in their effort to combat

terrorism.

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II. Counterterrorism Policy Components

The three rules outlines here are not unique to counterterrorism policy. Each one of

them can be applied to disaster response, any type of foreign policy, and down to local level

policy. Nonetheless, all three must be seen in any one counterterrorism policy in order for

it to continue to work.

The first rule of counterterrorism policy is that must be able to adapt and evolve.

Static policies that can become outdates quickly will not function well in a

counterterrorism setting. A policy that is so specific that it cannot function in a crisis to

bring criminals to justice or keep citizens safe is not a counterterrorism policy that should

be on the books. Albeit, there are certain instances were a very specific policy is needed for

a very specific, known and stable threat, but that is not what is referenced here. If a

government is unable to look seriously into its own belly to scrutinize the way terrorism is

handled, including the ever protected intelligence or police community, then something

needs to change. This is true for individuals well up to the top brass. Changes that come out

of that scrutinizing don’t have to be enormous. Sometimes complete overhauls are needed

and necessary, but small steps are steps nonetheless. If it becomes completely impossible

to write and implement a policy that can evolve, then policies need to be able to be changed

regularly. That is where constant, constructive scrutiny comes into play. A perfect policy

evolves by itself and when perfect is just unattainable, the easy, constructive, small changes

will do.

The second rule is that it should endeavor to gain a holistic view of the problem at

hand. If a counterterrorism policy or strategy is purely reactive, it will not work and will

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eventually backfire. The same goes for pursuing only one path towards interdiction. Tunnel

vision can become a serious problem for policy makers or representatives of people and

that is natural. It is natural to want to protect what is closest, but that is not helpful in the

long run. Understanding the lifecycle of terrorism is the key to this, as is the key to most

policy making. Gaining understanding of the motivations for the attacks will give more

information on how to predict and stop the next attack.

If, for example, a group is working towards an independent country for their

particular group (e.g. the Basque group in Spain or the Irish from the U.K.), they should be

treated with a different set of understandings than if a group simply wants to kill people. A

government should be able to recognize those differences. Past interactions with similar or

dissimilar groups should be the pretext to policy. There is always something that can be

learned from a situation that can help complete the bigger picture.

Also important is to understand how attacks work; which can help protect

infrastructure and civilians. Practice can be seen as a nuisance, but knowing what to do in

the event of an attack can save hundreds of lives. And finally, understanding how to deal

with the aftermath might not help prevent the next attack, but it can help the wounded heal

and evacuate the fear that follows in the wake of events. A government must be able to use

what they have learned in the past that either went well or poorly to improve future

responses and fill in gaps in perspective.

Also in this rule is the ability to analyze and synthesize information that can be

shared with other agencies or police systems. A large problem is that hindsight inevitably

shows that an agency or government had one piece of information that should have been

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connected with another agency easily if someone had looked. The ‘connect the dots’

problem requires a lot of work to conquer, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it in the end.

Rule number three is that counterterrorism policy is not something that can be

handled by a single agency or special working group at a high level. Policy as complicated

as counterterrorism requires a lot of manpower and a lot of time and millions of people

work to stop its use around the world each day. Counterterrorism is no place for a God

complex. It is a place for teamwork.

Big policies are not the only way to deal with terrorism and in the aftermath of

arrests or attacks, a government needs to have some sort of conviction policy or law in

place. Conviction policies in counterterrorism often take one of two general forms: criminal

and war, however they are not mutually exclusive. In the case of domestic terrorism,

criminal convictions are the best option. Treating a person as a war criminal after a

terrorist attack presupposes that this person is at war or that the country attacked is at

war. It is appropriate for war crimes to be treated as such. Terrorism should be treated as a

unique event. Each one deserves severe attention to detail.

Aftermath polices also deserve detail and fall into two categories: internal and

external. The process a country goes through after a terrorist attack is somewhat like the

grieving cycle. Once worked through, a government must not forget to plan ahead. In

regards to internal polices, these are things like the promotion of assimilation and

economic and social integration. The balance can be tricky and can be taken quite far, as in

the cases of Turkey and France where there is an explicit secularization of public life. Other

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internal policy examples are direct engagement, increased surveillance, and an increase in

border security and restrictions on visas.

External policies can take a myriad of forms. Some examples are cultural or

education exchanges (e.g. the Fulbright scholarship program or the Israeli-Palestinian

Orchestra), public diplomacy, targeted bilateral foreign assistance, and investment in

infrastructure or training (Banks, et a, 2008). Each one of these polices must be tailored to

specific events and should follow the three rules of counterterrorism policy. The three

illustrative examples below will take a look at these three rules in action.

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Section III: Illustrative Examples

1: The United States

This first example will look at how the United States used what it learned from

combating the Weather Underground in the 60s and 70s to combat domestic terrorism in

the 90s and beyond. The United States was chosen as an example because it was the first to

be a large victim of a terrorist attack on large cities carried out by men who lived in

country. It is the first of the three examples because 9/11 took place before the other.

Knowing what happens during the 9/11 attacks provides an insight into the mindset of the

other two examples when they were attacked.

This section will first look at the interaction between the Weather Underground and

the United States central government. It will then go on to discuss how the US used its

failures in that interaction to prepare themselves to combat terrorism in the 90s and

beyond. The Weather Underground was chosen because of the amount of destruction

carried out by bombings and targeting of police as a way to carry out political change. Al-

Qaeda was chosen because it claimed responsibility for the 9/11 attacks.

The United States do not have the kind of history with domestic terrorism that the

United Kingdom or Ireland has, however, that does not mean that its counterterrorism

strategy is any less comprehensive. The first act of counterterrorism in the United States

dates back to the same year at Robespierre spoke on the virtue of terrorism. In 1794

George Washington dealt with the Whiskey Rebellion and President Thomas Jefferson used

naval forces to fight off the Barbary pirates (Banks, et al, 2008). The United States was not

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unaccustomed to the use of terrorism directed towards the country, just terrorism directed

at Americans on United States soil.

One of the most destructive terrorist groups of the late 60s and early 70s was

Weather Underground. Throughout their history, the Weather Underground (WU) took a

violent stance against the Vietnam War and the United States government. They used

bombs, warning messages delivered to newspapers, destruction of property and violent

protests to make their message known. As an undergraduate student at Miami University

from 1972-1976, JoAnn Chonoska remembers how Weather Underground fit into the social

and political unrest of the era: “[There] was a fear of what they might do; that they would

take matters into their own hands and undermine all the different kinds of non-violent

protests. I knew about them through media and college newspapers; they were the dark

underbelly of protest and were never really well-defined. They used force or fear or

weapons as a show of power; they were a scary unknown” (Chonoska, 2012).

The WU saw its first steps of independent life in Chicago during the late 1960s. In

1969, WU split from the national Student for a Democratic Society (SDS) during the annual

conference, which took place in Chicago that year. The SDS had drawn inspiration from the

non-violent protests of the civil rights movement, especially Martin Luther King Jr. Those

that would form the WU were frustrated with the lack of results in stopping the Vietnam

War and thought they only way they would be able to truly get their point across was

through more and more violent means. The split would later be remember as

‘organizational piracy’ as the SDS began to fall to the way side as WU gained more status.

25

Among the members of WU were the rock stars of the 60s revolutions who regularly

engaged in hard drugs. In the same year of their formation, the members moved into

collective houses in major cities around the country from Chicago to New York City to San

Francisco. Their goals were to make the war visible in the United States and to rally the

white, middle and upper class youth of the country to follow them into revolution.

Their first major event announced was the ‘Days of Rage.’ Unsatisfied with the non-

violent protests, those involved were willing and able to engage violently with the Chicago

police. When the turnout was less than excepted (only around 200 youth showed as

opposed to the thousands they were hoping for) the WU took to the streets, marching

through Chicago, vandalizing and smashing store fronts. When they were eventually

confronted by the police, a violent altercation erupted with many injuries and arrests.

After the ‘Days of Rage’ failed to muster support for their cause, the WU felt

increasingly isolated and came to the conclusion that the rest of the country had been

bought off by the government. When Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, who the WU had

admired, was murdered in his apartment by the Chicago police, the WU snapped. They felt

that they bigger the mess they could make the better and that none were safe. Anyone in

the country that was not up to par or was apathetic to their cause of revolution was subject

to attack.

Terry Collins, a leader in the WU decided more violent action was needed and began

constructing a bomb in what was known as the ‘Townhouse’ in New York City. Collins

planned to plant the bomb at the non-commissioned officer’s ball at Fort Hicks. On March 6,

1970, during the construction of the device, it exploded and killed 3 members of WU. The

26

goal of making the United States unlivable had faltered, but members were now more

determined than ever. They began to say goodbye to family and friends and move

underground; not in the sense of geography, but in the sense of information deprivation.

Members only communicated with other members on a need to know basis and no one saw

their families.

It was at this turning point that WU came to the conclusion that they were

dangerously close to terrorism and decided that before going further, they needed to know

exactly what they were going to do. This did not deter them, for they were not opposed to

the use of terrorism, just the use of unplanned terrorism. They did not want to harm

civilians, but were willing to do what was necessary to further their cause.

Their first successful bombing took place in 1970 when they planted and detonated

a device in the Department of Prisons office in the Ferry Building in response to the killing

of George Jackson. Bombings continued from 1970 to 1975. Targets included National

Guard headquarters in 1970 in response to the Kent State killings, the Harvard Center for

International Affairs in 1971 to protest Vietnam, the United States Capitol Building in 1971

in response to the invasion of Laos, the 103rd precinct in New York City in response to the

killing of a black 10 year old boy by the police, and the Department of State in 1975 in

response to the escalation in Vietnam. During this period, WU was a force worthy of the

attention of the FBI that they established Squad 47 whose specific task was to track, find,

and arrest WU members. WU was a criminal problem using terrorist methods but were

treated as a purely criminal problem.

27

The WU unraveled in the early 1970s for many of the same reasons it had been so

effective. The information control and need to know tactics used by the ‘Weather Bureau,’

the committee in charge of WU had backfired. Members were unsure was what was

happening nation-wide and had no way of transmitting ideas back and forth. The FBI had

come close to catching them through the use of undercover agents, but in the end, courts

could not use much of the information gathered, as it was obtained illegally.

Members were also growing older and starting families. With the high

unemployment of the 70’s, they came to realize that the skill set acquired as a

revolutionary did not translate into a blue collar job. When the Vietnam War ended in

1975, their ultimate goal of bringing the United States to its knees had failed. The

leadership was criticized and members turned themselves into police. Many members

started their lives with a new light or disappeared (Ettinger, et al, 2002). WU has stayed

dormant for years and recently has reengaged through the Occupy movement in 2011,

though in a much more peaceful way.

WU’s classification as a terrorist group was applied in subsequent years, but with

their tactics of fear, the ultimate political goal of ending the Vietnam War, and the targeting

of civilians this should not be a surprise. The United States government had chosen to

combat them with criminal proceedings, but without a well thought-out plan that was

unable to adapt to changing tactics, they ultimately failed. In the two other illustrative

examples in the following sections, this will become a reoccurring theme. The first attempt

at counterterrorism is usually to use the criminal code to punish the acts, but this does not

obey the three rules in the previous section. A purely criminal-based mission statement

28

cannot evolve correctly, it only covers one aspect of the problem, and it fails to incorporate

other agencies into the solution. This is the natural progression of policies, but as seen with

WU, it doesn’t always work in time.

The U.S. slowly began to learn that using the same tactics that had failed them in

dealing with the WU would not work in the future as more and more terrorist attacks were

being aimed at the U.S. Criminal laws alone were not going to cut it. The first specific

counterterrorism policies in the United States came after foreign attacks on United States.

The 1983 car bombing of the United States Embassy in Beirut set the wheels in motion.

Having learned from the past that a purely criminal set of standards would not work,

Congress passed an Omnibus Diplomatic Security and Antiterrorism Act in 1986.

Terrorism was squarely on US radar. Had WU employed bombing tactics post-1986

they would have been treated much differently, if not more successfully. It was also at this

time that Congress authorized the FBI to investigate overseas and established the Counter

Terrorism Center (CTC) at the CIA. The CTC was designed to address the deficiencies seen

earlier when several federal departments and agencies processed intelligence within their

own facilities, but failed to consolidate and analyze information (Banks, et al, 2008). The

way it was organized was also a big change for the CIA. The CTC and its analysts were

housed within the agencies operational directorate, which broke the long standing

bureaucratic norm at Langley of keeping analysts and operations officers separate. The

goal of this was to focus analytic efforts more effectively on time-sensitive threats and, in

turn, ensure that counterterrorism operations were better informed (Schmitt, 2010).

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The next events that forced the United States counterterrorism policy to change

were the 1993 Ramzi Yousef attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the

Oklahoma City bombing by McVeigh and Nichols in 1995. The counterterrorism policy born

out of a foreign attack in Beirut had failed to stop those two substantial attacks on United

States soil. The changes seen in this decade would be drastic, but necessary. They would

also use the lessons learned from the WU in these endeavors.

In 1994, the threat of al-Qaeda was being to loom more steadily both in the United

States and abroad. Any ‘material support’ to terrorism was explicitly outlawed, making it a

federal crime to aid or abet terrorist activities. The FBI was also given more abilities to

conduct electronic surveillance by requiring telecommunications companies and

equipment manufacturers to have built-in, inherent surveillance systems and services. This

meant that, with the approval of a court order, agents could now follow phone, internet,

and other traffic in real time (Schmitt, 2010).

The entire 1990’s followed along this same event and reaction format. After

Oklahoma City, the ‘material support’ legislation was modified and expanded and the CTC

created a special unit focused on Osama bin Laden. In 1998 came truck bombings on United

States embassies; in 1999 the Millennium plot against LAX was foiled; in 2000 the USS Cole

was attack in Yemen. From 1998-2000, the FBI also created a stand-alone counterterrorism

division. With all the new legislation and agencies, it can be easy to say that United States

counterterrorism was evolving and adapting, which it was. But it was failing in a large way

at the same time. Information was not bridging the gaps between agencies.

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In 1998, George Tenent, the nominal head of the United States intelligence

community, sent a memo stating: “We are at war…I want no resources or people

spared…either inside the CIA or the Community” (Schmitt, 2010). This memo had little

impact on the intelligence community and was not even read by many key players. There

had not been consistent attention given to counterterrorism and the United States fell into

a state of complacency. They had only recently changed surveillance procedures and were

failing to continually re-evaluate important guidelines. Then in 2001, an FBI agent in

Phoenix sent a memo to the FBI Headquarters and to two agents on the international

terrorism squads in the New York field office, advising the “possibility of a coordinated

effort by Usama Bin Ladin” (National Commission, 2004). No one was connecting the dots.

The 9/11 attacks fell into a void that had formed between foreign and domestic

threats. “The Foreign intelligence agencies were watching overseas, alert to foreign threats

to United States interest there. The domestic agencies were waiting for evidence of a

domestic threat from sleeper cells within the United States. No one was looking for a

foreign threat on domestic targets. The threat that was coming was not from sleeper cells.

It was foreign – but from foreigners who had infiltrated into the United States” (National

Commission, 2004). There was no plan or direction in the event of a large scale domestic

attack by foreign operatives; the U.S. was beginning to apply the three rules to their mode

of thinking, but no in time to stop the 9/11 attacks.

Of the three illustrative examples contained in this paper, the 9/11 attacks took

place over the longest amount of time: 102 minutes. At 8:46am, the hijacked American

Airlines Flight 11 flew into the upper portion of the North Tower, cutting through floors 93

31

to 99. A jet fuel fireball erupted upon impact and shot down at least one bank of elevators

and exploded through multiple floors. At 8:57am, the Fire Department of New York (FDNY)

chiefs had instructed the Port Authority Police Department (PAPD) and the building

personnel to evacuate the South Tower as well, because of the magnitude of damage caused

by the first plane’s impact. By 9:00am, many senior FDNY leaders, including 7 of the 11

most highly ranked chiefs in the department, as well as the Commissioner and many of his

deputies and assistants, had begun to respond from headquarters in Brooklyn. During this

time massive amounts of first responders were dispatched throughout the scene.

At 9:03am the hijacked United Airlines Flight 175 hit the South Tower, from the

south, crashing through the 77th to 85th floors. What had been the largest and most

complicated rescue operation in city history had just doubled in magnitude. Over the next

45 minutes, the emergency response escalated and became much more difficult to control.

Radio problems and an overwhelming response from first responders from New York and

New Jersey made a critical situation nearly impossible to completely control.

32

The World Trade Center Complex as of 9/11 – 9/11 Commission Report

At 9:37am, the west wall of the Pentagon was hit by hijacked American Airlines

Flight 77. The crash caused immediate and catastrophic damage killing all 64 on board as

well as 125 people inside the Pentagon.

At 9:58am the South Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed into itself causing a

ferocious windstorm and creating a massive debris cloud. A half hour later at 10:58am the

North Tower collapsed. All told, on September 11, the United States suffered the largest

loss of life on its soil as a result of hostile attack in its history. The total was 2,973 dead

(National Commission, 2004).

The counterterrorism policy of the United States had failed in a massive way, but

that doesn’t mean that it was useless or that it is not capable of doing its job, just that it was

incomplete. The events leading up to 9/11 have been scrutinized en masse using the finest

academic and governmental microscopes. This section will focus on legislation passed in

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the wake of 9/11 which resulted in the creation of many new agencies including, but not

limited to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the expansion of the fusion

center network, and briefly, how those changes followed the three rules and learned from

the past.

The first big of legislation to pass through Congress as the result of 9/11 was the

Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept

and Obstruct Terrorism Act (USA Patriot Act) of 2001. The act was less a complete

revamping of counterterrorism, which wasn’t needed, but an opportunity to update

legislation and plug holes. The purely criminal approach seen in the past would not work

with the new nature of the terrorist threat. What will soon become a theme in post-event

counterterrorism policy, the Patriot Act was slammed through the legislature because

emotions were running high and elected officials wanted to do something to alleviate

immediate fears. Later down the line, the act would be amended and expanded.

Among the most controversial aspects of the Patriot Act was the expansion of the

FBI and other executive branch authorities who were now able to acquire third-party

business and transactional information in support of counterterrorism investigations

through the modification of National Security Letters (NSLs). NSL now required only a

field-level approval and were not subject to review and once in possession of an NSL to use,

it can be given to telecommunications providers, banks, or credit card companies to

demand record and data associated with an individual, even if that individual was not the

target of a full-blown investigation. The reasoning behind this new power was that the FBI

needed the ability to develop cases, generate leads, and provide general data for

34

intelligence analysts and by 2004, over fifty-six thousand were issued; as opposed to the

eighty-five hundred issued in 2000 (Schmitt, 2010).

The intentions behind NSLs were admirable. The government was attempting to get

ahead of the terrorism curve and subvert the next attack while it was in the works.

Agencies had realized that they were not in possession of the entire picture and this was an

opportunity to complete it. This also showed that the United States government was willing

to self-criticize, which is pursuant to the rules of counterterrorism policy.

One of the most significant changes to changes to come out of 9/11 was the creation

of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) thanks to the Homeland Security Act of

2002. It consolidated 180,000 employees and 22 different agencies and this was the biggest

restructuring in Washington since 1947 when the Department of Defense was created.

Former DHS secretary Michael Chernoff describes the four core missions as keeping

dangerous people out of the country, keeping dangerous materials out of the country,

protecting critical infrastructure, and building an agency capable of responding effectively

to attacks or disasters (Schmitt, 2010).

The United States had the presence of mind at this time to adapt and evolve in an

enormous way. One huge advantage of the DHS was its ability to act as a fusion center for

agencies. Before, any sort of intelligence sharing might be on a case-by-case basis, as ‘turf

wars’ were abundant. Customs Enforcement, FEMA, TSA, INS, and the National Guard could

generate a mosaic of information on a daily basis concerning who was entering the country,

any new threats, and who was leaving. While they were still separate agencies, living under

the same department forced a certain level of cooperation. The God complex of pre 9/11

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information hoarding had made way for a certain level of teamwork that was greatly

needed; a large step towards following rule three.

To help this along, the DHS placed personnel with other federal and local

counterterrorism centers and set up liaison relations with DHS centers in individual states.

Fusion center became a huge part of this. A fusion center acts as a sort of melting pot for

information and intelligence collected at the field level. It produces analyses for agents and

officers to use and has the ability to share information across a large computer server

system that connects federal agencies with lower level officials. While not a direct result of

the creation of DHS, new life was breathed into them once the importance of sharing

information was brought to the forefront.

Fusion centers also do a lot to support state, local, and tribal authorities at their

collections. Each fusion center operates in a unique way that is best suited to the area they

are covering. The fusion center of Montana would not be able to function well in Huston.

There are, of course, concerns with civil liberties concerning the collection of data, but

fusion centers adapt and do what they can to alleviate fears as well as following strict

guidelines concerning those who are able to access data contained within the server.

Of all the different legislative and institutional changes, the construction of the DHS

and increased use of fusion center have been the most important in the United States

counterterrorism policy because they address all three rules mentioned above. The

willingness to evolve is not easy by any means and sometimes the trauma of a catastrophic

even is the only way it will happen. Unfortunately, this is a common occurrence in the

evolution of counterterrorism policies and will be seen in both Spain and the U.K. Stresses

36

and traumas are both important, but what lasts when they are over are the changes

brought on by self-criticism of the events that just took place.

When it comes to the second rule of gaining a holistic view, the United States has

done well in expanding community policing efforts to gather ground intelligence, making

sure that all different forms of intelligence are shared as freely as possible, and that the

‘turf wars’ that plagued the intelligence community were slowly dissolved. This also shows

a willingness to not fall into a God complex trap. Especially in intelligence, it can be easy to

think that a particular agency is the best and has all the information needed to bring down

a criminal or terrorist. The FBI fell into this trap during the time of WU and suffered

because of it. They failed to learn take into account the many reasons that the WU used the

tactics that they did and they failed to work with other agencies or the local police to take

them down. Knowing that they had failed in such a massive way in the past helped put

intelligence community egos into perspective and foster some much needed teamwork.

They had learned that the FBI/criminal centric ways of combating terrorist groups in the

pat just won’t work in the future. The next two illustrative examples of the U.K. and Spain

will continue to look at how past experiences with terrorist groups shaped the way a

government responded to a massive attack on the capital city.

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2: The United Kingdom

This second example will look at how the United Kingdom took what it learned from

engaging with the Irish Republican Army from the 1910’s up to 2005. The United Kingdom

was chosen as the second example because of its massive level of experience with

counterterrorism. It is placed as the second of three examples because in the timeline of

large attacks on western nations post 2000, it came second with the attack in 2005. The

United Kingdom also serves as an interesting counter-point to the United States in

particular.

This section will first look at the involved history surround the British mainland and

the island of Ireland. Much like the history of terrorism, understanding the many steps that

the British government has taken to quell the Irish ‘troubles’ will provide some light into

why they chose to handle the 2005 attacks the way they did. The second part of this section

will look at the 2005 attacks and how the United Kingdom used the lessons it learned in

dealing successfully and unsuccessfully with the IRA, in its current endeavors.

The IRA has been the pivotal source for the development of counterterrorism

strategy in the United Kingdom and that has led to a solid development of policies. Just as

with terrorism itself, the history of the IRA’s movements and destruction tells a lot about

how the U.K. reacts to current domestic terrorism.

The attacks date back more than 70 years and have spanned the range of vicious

and deadly strategies. The IRA lives under the class of sub-state terrorism and is squarely

in the nationalist box. The beginning of the IRA finds its roots in 1914, when the Protestant

38

elite, who were the ruling government in Ireland, lost their grasp on power due to the

Home Rule Bill out of the British government. It had allowed for Irish self-government, but

was suspended during the First World War (“The IRA”, 2008). In 1916, in what was dubbed

the Easter Rising, a group of Irish nationalists living in Ireland, then a colony of the British

Empire, seized control of the General post office in Dublin. Unimpressed, the British

government took down the rebellion ruthlessly and within a few days the leaders were

executed. Having been involved with Ireland since the 12th century, disloyalty was not

tolerated from their oldest colony.

When there was a general election in Ireland in 1918, the Protestant elite found that

they had lost their majority thanks to the new group Sinn Féin, the nationalist Catholic

group, who won a majority of the Irish seats in Westminster. However, they refused to take

the seats. Instead, they declared a republic of their own, meant to be government for and by

Irishmen and women, with Eamon de Valera as their president. The British were furious

and the two sides collided. This immediately sent the IRA to arms, who began a deadly

fight. By the middle of the summer of 1920, the Irish War of Independence was in full swing

and showed little signs of an end. During the first phase, 55 policemen were killed and 16

barracks were destroyed. Britain was understandably nervous and dispensed a volunteer

police force to Ireland. The Irish were quite literally beaten into submission by the ‘Black

and Tans’, nicknamed such because of their black and tan uniforms. Those fighting for the

independence of Ireland were now much more sympathetic to the cause. By December of

that year, the Prime Minister of the U.K. realized, mercifully, that this state of affairs could

not continue. He declared that the 26 predominately Roman Catholic counties in the south

would form the Irish Free State and former IRA leader Michael Collins would be Prime

39

Minister. At the same time the 6 Protestant counties in the North would have their own

parliament, but would remain soundly tucked in the U.K..

The deal was happily received as it meant a possible end to the violence, but to the

Irish nationalists, only a completely free Ireland would be an acceptable resolution. De

Valera resigned in disgust and the beginning of the next war was not far behind, but this

time it was not directly at the U.K., but rather a battle of northern Protestants against

southern Catholics. The IRA would be defeated not 2 years later after fighting to their

deaths. In 1932, De Valera had broken away from Sinn Féin and had formed another

government. Five years later, he declared the South a republic; they were not a “free state”

anymore.

But, by the end of WWII, the IRA was falling apart and their membership dropped to

a mere 200. They were short of weapons and munitions, so they decided to carry out a

series of raids on the British Army Barracks and other installations in the North. They

seized what was needed to defend and defeat: anti-tank guns, mortars, sub-machine guns

and rifles. With a new sense of determination and a new arsenal, they were back on the war

path against the British. This is now the classic IRA that the world knows. They carried out

attacks on military bases; they blew craters in roads, burnt police stations and court

houses, and fire on troops and police. By the year 1962, the ‘Border Campaign,’ as it had

come to be known, was failing. They had carried out around 500 incidents, but had not

made any significant progress.

At the same time, a different movement, that for the civil rights and equal treatment

of the northern Catholics, was gaining force. They tried to separate themselves from the

40

violence of the IRA, however most large protests ended in bloody battles. The current

Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, sent troops to the streets of Northern Ireland after a cry for

help came from the Northern Irish Government. Frustrated by this lack of willpower, a

small splinter group, the PIRA, broke off from the IRA. They declared that their main aim

was to send the British troops out the North. They begin what is one of the longest,

bloodiest, and most violent terror campaigns the world has ever seen (“The IRA”, 2008).

The Global Terrorism Database out of the University of Maryland has records on

terrorism incidents from 1970 to 2010. In regards to the IRA, there is a staggering 2,673

incidents associated with the group over those years.

IRA incidents by year – Global Terrorism Database

A big change had come in the way that the British would handle the IRA, soon to be

nicknamed “The Troubles.” The approach went from ‘peace-keeping’ to ‘counter-

insurgency.’ The British government was learning from past mistakes. Even so, only a year

later, the British government realized how much it would take for a full defeat and

switched to the goal of bringing it to an acceptable level (Parker, 2010). To do this, one of

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the measures enacted by the British government was a broad ban on marches of any kind

as well as instituting internment camps for those associated with the IRA. In direct defiance

of this, on January 20th, 1972, a large group of anti-internment civil rights protestors took

the streets of Londonberry. The British government responded by sending in the Parachute

Regiment, one of Britain’s toughest army units, to disperse the crowd. While it started

peacefully, like many other protests in the past, rocks and missiles were used against the

military. And suddenly, according the troops present, they were fired upon. They returned

fire and hit some of the crowd and within minutes, 13 people were dead and another 13

were wounded on ‘Bloody Sunday’. Any hope of bringing the counter-insurgency to an

accepted level of troubles in the view of the British government was lost. The situation was

getting worse too quickly.

The British policy was following rule one: policy must evolve. They were learning

that is a policy did not work; it needed to change, sometimes quite dramatically. Four

months later, an official inquest into the incident concluded that the military had indeed

been fired on first. The catholic community saw this as a white washing and more young

people flocked to the PIRA and a bomb was planted at the Parachute Regiment’s

headquarters in Aldershot. Seven people were killed, but they were not the intended

targets. The victims included five women cleaners, a catholic chaplain, and the gardener. In

May, the IRA also launched an attack that backfired. They had executed a 19 year old

British soldier who was visiting his parents in Londberry. The official IRA leadership

decided to declare an indefinite ceasefire, the first of many. The campaign to wrench the

North from the hands of the British was now with the PIRA and they took incidents to an

42

entire other level. Two crowded pubs, on in Gilford, and the other in Birmingham were

bombed, killing 24 and injuring 226 (“The IRA”, 2008).

After the bombings came the first act of parliament aimed specifically at terrorism:

the Prevention of Terror Act 1974. The act contained specific requirements for the label of

terrorism and “gave power to exclude certain persons from Great Britain or the United

Kingdom in order to prevent acts of terrorism, and for connected purposes.” The British

government had finally begun to realize that there was more than one aspect to this

problem and it would take the passing of an Act that took this into account to end ‘the

troubles.’ However, the government would continue to see Irish terrorism as a purely

criminal act, which would hinder its formation of a holistic view.

There were three sections to the Act. The first covers ‘proscribed organizations’,

which refers to terrorist organizations. Specifically what the punishment is for belonging to

an organization and what should happen to those who show public support for it. The

second sections deals with exclusion orders, including powers of removal from the U.K. and

the ability to block entry to the country. The third section details the powers of arrest and

detention, financial provision and that the act extends to the Channel Islands and the Isle of

Man (Prevention of Terrorism Act 1974).

The 1980s would usher in a brand new kind of counterterrorism policies under the

tutelage of Margaret Thatcher. The reason for this came in August of 1979 when a bomb

was placed on a small boat off the coast of County Sligo in the south which killed four

people, one of which was 79 year old Lord Louis Mountbatten, the Queen’s uncle. Margaret

Thatcher decided that enough was enough. The time for bringing ‘the troubles’ to an

43

acceptable level was over. She rapidly went after IRA members and before long, many were

in jail.

In 1984, a bomb went off at the Grand Hotel in Brighton, England, killing five people

staying there during the conservative party’s conference. Thatcher was unwavered and

was quoted saying, “You hear about these atrocities, these bombs, you don’t expect them to

happen to you. But life must go on as usual…Conference will go on. The conference…alright,

alright, the conference will go on as usual” (“The IRA”, 2008). Not more than four years

later, the IRA was learning that as unflinching as their hearts may be, their tactics of

assassination and targeting civilians through terrorism was not bringing the ends they

wished for. The British government had carried out extremely successful anti-terror sting

operations and widiling down the IRA. In 1988, secret talks began between Gerry Adams,

president of the IRA’s political party Sinn Féin, and John Hume, the leader of the Social

Democratic and Labour Party in Northern Ireland. Adams and Hume knew the only way out

of this was though a political process and they eventually reached terms that would lead to

a ceasefire in 1994 (“The IRA”, 2008).

Prior to that ceasefire, three important changes occurred in the ever-evolving

British counterterrorism strategy. First, in 1989, Thatcher’s government passed the

Security Service (known as MI5) Act, which specifically mentions terrorism as a crime, a

theme that has been present throughout the British counterterrorism strategy. The act is

brief but vital, with its mission statement reading, “The function of the Security Service

shall be the protection against threats from espionage, terrorism, and sabotage, from the

activities of agents of foreign powers and from actions intended to overthrow or

44

undermine parliamentary democracy by political, industrial, or violent means” (Security

Service Act 1989). It is important here to know that counterterrorism in not concentrated

within a single body, which directly addresses rule three. Within the U.K. government each

agency that has a counterterrorism function operates in a unique way. This is similar to the

United States as it combats terrorism now, but this has been present in the British

government much earlier on.

The Security Service had no executive powers. When that sort of power was needed

it fell to other agencies. For example, the Home Office may seek to deport terrorists, the

Foreign Office may refuse entry visas, and the police and the Crown Prosecution Service

can pursue criminal charges (Parker, 2010). Also in this time span, MI5 had a major change.

The Security Service’s mission changed from Cold War era counterintelligence to a full

focus on counterterrorism. From 1992-1994 their counterterrorism budget doubled with

the result being an increase in the number of preventive disruptions (Parker, 2010).

That doubling of the budget was needed in 1996 when the 1994 ceasefire ended

abruptly with a bombing in Canary Warf, in London’s docklands. This led to another year of

terror until July 1997 when the PIRA announced another ceasefire and begins discussions

to decommission their weapons. Tony Blair was now Prime Minister and was fervently

determined to get the peace process back on course, no matter what. He had recognized

that the current counterterrorism strategy was stalemated and needed a serious boost.

During a speech he laid out his terms frankly, “My message to Sinn Féin is clear. The

settlement train is leaving, I want you on that train but it is leaving anyway and I will not

allow it to wait for you” (“The IRA”, 2008).

45

This call to action was answered by Sinn Féin and Northern Ireland with the Good

Friday Agreement. While it might not have been directly with the British government, it

still steamed the fighting by effectively nullifying the IRA’s combative branch through its

Declaration of Support: “The tragedies of the past have left a deep and profoundly

regrettable legacy of suffering…we can better honour them through a fresh start, in which

we firmly dedicated ourselves to the achievement of reconciliation, tolerance, and mutual

trust…We affirm our total and absolute commitment to exclusively democratic and

peaceful means of resolving differences on political issues, and our opposition to any use or

threat of force by others for any political purpose…” (“Good Friday agreement,” 1998). The

Good Friday agreement has endured well since.

The agreement did not mean, however, that the IRA was completely gone. Four

months after the agreement was signed in April, a car bomb exploded in County Tyrone

killing 29 and injuring 220. This was the worst terrorist attack ever carried out in Northern

Ireland. Responsibility was claimed by the Real IRA (RIRA), a splinter group of the PIRA.

This was the last straw and the RIRA announces a ceasefire. Negotiations finally lead to an

official ceasefire on July 28th, 2005 when spokesmen Shauna Welch confirmed the decision

in public (“The IRA”, 2008).

The British government’s counterterrorism strategy had survived attacks by the

IRA, PIRA, and RIRA intact. There were now laws in place that criminalized terrorism and

the acts associated with it, however, they followed a traditional ‘temporary permanence’

structure. In 1997, Blair implemented recommendations that came out of an investigation

associated with the IRA and in 1998; the government passes the Criminal Justice

46

(Terrorism and Conspiracy) Act. ‘Temporary permanence’ was discontinued with the 2001

Terrorism Act (TACT), which also included new criminal offences relating to terrorism.

With the 9/11 attacks, the U.K. experienced an unwelcome trauma to their

counterterrorism strategy that was outside the range of their range of history with the IRA.

More British citizens were killed in 9/11 than any other terrorist attack in the U.K.. The

British government responded in a visceral way, much like the United States did, by

slamming through the Anti-Terrorism, Crime, and Security Act (ATSCA) in 2001. This piece

of legislation would take rule two straight to its heart. It created new penalties for crimes

aggravated by racial or religious hatred and permitted the freezing of suspected terrorist

assets at the outset of an investigation. Terrorism was no longer one dimensional.

One of the most controversial aspects was the new ability to hold foreign nationals

suspected of terrorism involvement for an undetermined amount of time without the right

of Habeas Corpus. The House of Lords would eventually add 70 amendments to the original

bill and in 2004 the Law Lords ruled that ATSCA was unjustifiably discriminatory.

Other acts, strategies, and agencies to be put into practice between 9/11 and the

2005 bombings included the Counter-Terrorism Strategy (CONTEST) in 2002 again with

the aim of a holistic strategy including all the arms of government, the establishment of the

Joint Terrorism Analysis Center (JTAC) in 2003, the Civil Contingencies Act in 2004, and the

Terrorism Bill in 2005, which was later rejected and transformed into a new bill. The

Metropolitan Police (the “Met) also had an increase in competency. The Anti-Terror branch,

known as SO13, continued to be responsible for immediate response to incidents or

investigations. The Covert Ops (SO10) and Intelligence (SO11) were restructured to focus

47

more on counterterrorism (Van de Linde, 2002). The U.K. government was adept at

treating terrorism as a crime. It had worked in the years fighting and negotiating with the

IRA, and it was working against foreign terrorists perpetrating offences in the U.K.. The

attacks in 2005 brought about another wave of emotional and sometimes not well thought

out reactions that would change the tactics of the U.K. again.

The July 7th attacks (referred to as 7/7) happened over the span of 56 minutes. The

first three explosions happened almost simultaneously. At 8:50am local time, there was an

explosion on a Circle Line train between Aldgate Station and Liverpool Street Station. The

second came from the Circle Line outside Edgeware Road. The third blast was from a train

on the Piccadilly Line between King’s Cross and Russell Square stations. At 9:47, 56

minutes later, there was a fourth explosion on the upper deck of the No. 30 bus in Tavistock

Square. 56 people, including the bombers, died in the attacks and more than 700 were

injured (“Report of the,” 2006). The bombs were revealed to be quite amateurish compared

to the Madrid bombings the previous year (Don Van & Johnston, 2005). Each bomb

contained less than 10 pounds of high explosive (Cowell, 2005).

The police response to the attacks was fast and accurate. At 9:33am, the London

Underground services were put on amber level alert and the trains were evacuated. At

10:00am six mainline stations (Euston, King’s Cross, St. Pancras, Victoria, Paddington, and

Liverpool St) closed. At 11:00am the public was told not to travel to London and at

11:08am bus services in Zone 1, at the center of London, were suspended. These services

were opened again later in the day after it was deemed safe. (“How the day,” 2005). Two

48

make shift mortuaries were set up in two nearby hotels: The Royal National Hotel as well

as the Holiday Inn in Bloomsbury (“Transport Chaos,” 2005).

News of the bombings was relayed to Prime Minister Tony Blair while he was

attending the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland. After reading a joint statement from the

G8 leaders on the attacks, he rushed back to London for meetings with security and

intelligence chiefs. In the afternoon, Blair met with COBRA (short for Cabinet Office Briefing

Room A), which includes the Deputy Prime Minister, Cabinet Secretary, the Chancellor,

Defense Secretary, Home Secretary, the Chief or the Defense staff, the Chairman of the Joint

Intelligence Committee and the Chief Foreign Policy Adviser to the Prime Minster (Van de

Linde, et al, 2002). They worked to secure more detailed plans for the rest of the day (Muir

& Cowan, 2005).

The claim of responsibility for the attacks came later in the afternoon. At 1:27pm the

Islamist website of the ‘Secret Organization Group of al-Qaeda of Jihad Organization in

Europe’ published a 200 word statement saying it had carried out the attacks. Four men

were eventually discovered to have carried out the attacks: Mohammad Sidique Khan (the

leader of the group), Shehzad Tanweer, Jermaine Lindsay, and Hasib Hussain. The best

indication of the group’s motivations were set out in Khan’s video statement, which first

aired on the Arabic television channel, Al Jazeera on September 1, as well as in his will,

which was discovered by the police after the bombings. The focus of the video was on the

‘perceived injustices carried out by the West against Muslims’, which according to Khan,

justified violence through his interpretation of Islam. After the attacks in Madrid, Spain

withdrew its troops from Iraq without subsequent terrorist incidents, whereas Britain has

49

remained committed to Operation Iraqi Freedom, hence the attack on London

(Dannenbaum, 2011).

With the U.K.’s history of counterterrorism, they approached this attack with tools

already in place, although not without some gross mistakes due to emotional involvement,

similarly to the U.S. directly after 9/11. A poignant example of this is the Prevention of

Terrorism Bill of 2005, which was slammed through similarly to one in 2001 after 9/11. It

tried to fulfill the need to pass something tangible that would show the British citizenry

that the government was capable of continuing protecting them; just as they had with the

IRA.

The original intention of the act was to deal with the Law Lord’s ruling in 2004 that

the detention of foreigners at Belmarsh Prison under Part 4 of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime

and Security Act of 2001 was unlawful and was incompatible with European human rights

laws. Instead, the Home Secretary was allowed to impose ‘control orders’ on people who

were suspected of involvement in terrorism (“Prevention of terrorism,” 2012). Control

orders allow the U.K. government to restrict an individual’s liberty for the purpose of

‘protecting members of the public from a risk of terrorism’ and provides for extremely

limited rights of appeal and the absence of double jeopardy restrictions (“Control Order,”

2011).

The Act fell on critical ears after the initial passing. Many claimed that human rights

were being violated through the control orders. This was a problem because among the

first things mentioned in the bill is the statement made by then Home Secretary Clarke

concerning the European Convention on Human Rights: “In my view the provisions of the

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Prevention of Terrorism Bill are compatible with the Convention rights” (Act of Parliament:

Prevention of Terrorism Act of 2005). In April 2006, High Court Justice Sullivan described

the entire bill as an “affront to justice” (Dodd & Bailey, 2006).

Almost a year after 7/7, 11 control orders had been issued. Another judge who ruled

on a control order case said that the anti-terrorism measures were “conspicuously unfair.”

Human rights infringements happened twice in less than a year of implementation. Justice

Sullivan concluded: “Controllees’ rights…are being determined not by an independent

court…but by executive decision making untrammeled by any prospect of effective judicial

supervision” (Dodd & Bailey, 2006). Many renowned human rights organizations –

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, JUSTICE, and Liberty – also outwardly

opposed the Act. There were complaints about the wide range of restrictions attached to

the Act, the use of closed proceedings and special advocates to hear secret evidence which

the defendant was not able to see, and the possibility that evidence was obtained through

torture via third countries (“Prevention of terrorism,” 2012).

It is widely recognized that the Act was rushed through, which caused many of the

problems and those that opposed the Act did not want the replacement to fall into the same

problem; a rush of emotion just to have another bill pass quickly was not the solution. The

Parliament had recognized that it was in need of legislation that could evolve and was not

just the immediate response of angry and grief-ridden representatives. Lord Carlile, an

independent reviewer of the government’s anti-terrorism laws told the BBC, “I hope we

will not get another piece of rushed legislation. I think this really does need mature

reflection” (Dodd & Bailey, 2006). The Prevention of Terrorism Act of 2005 was repealed

51

on December 14, 2011 and was replaced by the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation

Measures Act of 2011.

In addition to legislation, 7/7 brought about many institutional changes, many to do

with rule three and the importance of substantive teamwork. Having failed to stop the

attack, the security and intelligence community underwent a major overhaul. In 2006, the

Intelligence and Security committee issued the Report into the Terrorist Attacks 7 July 2005.

Before 7/7, there was a large lack of communication and coordination between polices

forces and the security and intelligence community and this was acknowledged in the

report: “Inter-Agency collaboration and co-operation with others…continuing this

improvement must be at the heart of future efforts…More needs to be done to improve the

way that the Security Service and Special Branches come together in a combined and

coherent way” (“Report of the”, 2006). Different institutional priorities and responsibilities

had encouraged a disconnected approach to the investigation of terror suspects. Post 7/7,

this changed to acknowledge that action needed to be taken much earlier in the process of

radicalization, recruitment, and attack-planning, which addresses rules two and three.

MI5 exploded with the creation of six new regional stations, the Met merged SO13

with Special Branch to form a ‘Counter Terrorism Command’ known as SO15, a number of

new Counter Terrorism Units (CTU) were set up to provide coordination and special

support to police, and a number of analytical ‘fusion centers’ were established with the aim

of facilitating better cooperation and coordination between different counter terrorism

agencies (Field, 2009). The intelligence community it seemed had learned that the

investigational skills they had acquired during the IRA area were not immediately

52

transferrable to a new threat; much like the U.S. had learned the tactics used in

investigating the WU in the 60s and 70s would not work in the 00s.

Translating criminal procedures to cover an outside source of terrorism however,

proved to be much simpler. Acts associated with terrorism were outlawed during the IRA

era, but any community policing and cultural support needed to evolve in order to fit a new

era in domestic terrorism was not there. This change was first acknowledged after 9/11

with the religious or racial motivation clause in ATSCA. It was furthered after 7/7 to

extended police powers and active engagement with the Muslim community throughout

the country. The British government quickly realized that confronting the task of reducing

radicalization was too large for any one part of the government to handle, so in Mid-August

of 2005, several members of Parliament (MPs) went on a “listening-tour” in towns and

cities with large Muslim communities while the government launched a consultation

initiative with Muslim communities. A task force consisting of seven Working Groups and

over 100 Muslim community leaders was also created to make recommendations for

combating political extremism (Klausen, 2007).

The aim of community policing was to facilitate information sharing, build trust in

cases of arrests and operations, and to mitigate the negative impact of enforcement on the

Muslim community at large. In addition, it was also a solution to many other problems

including the need to improve communication with Muslim communities, finding ways to

marginalize the extremists, and ultimately promote social integration (Klausen, 2009). The

general thought behind community policing is outlined as: “We listen and solve crime in the

neighborhood. Terrorism is not so different. Terrorists live somewhere. They park their car

53

and store their stuff somewhere. There are people who know about this. National security

in the end will depend upon solving neighborhood crime” (Klausen, 2007). From the

community end, police partnerships with mosque groups were developed for the purpose

of providing religious re-education for inmates in prison and to young people who were

deemed likely to hold extremist sympathies (Klausen, 2007).

The path the U.K. government has taken with its counterterrorism strategy has been

extremely varied, but it evolved as the threat evolved. The same tactics used to quell the

Easter Uprising in 1916 would not have worked the 1970 or 2005. This ability to evolve

has also been key to successful protection of British citizens. However, it has often taken

large, costly events for counterterrorism strategy to take a leap forward. This was seen in

the United States after 9/11 and will be seen, though not so strongly in Spain after the 2007

attacks. This is an unfortunate reality to counterterrorism in any country. It is easy to fall

into complacency knowing how many plots have been foiled within a country. And while it

is great that methods are working against current threats, there needs to be enough

willingness to adjust when the time comes. The U.K. did this after large IRA events, after

9/11, and after 7/7. Realizing the needs to overhaul intelligence services to address rules

two and three were big steps and that is important to recognize. This sort of flexibility

needs to continue if the U.K., or any of the other examples, is to successfully combat future

attacks.

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3: Spain

The last illustrative example included in this paper is Spain, which also has a history

of domestic terrorism coupled with a large terrorist event in the capital city. The first part

of this section will discuss the history between the Spanish central government and ETA

and the legislation used by the former against the later. In the second part of this section,

Spain’s legislative and institutional changes will be examined to see if they have learned

from the past to help confront the most recent attacks. All the while, as with the other

sections, noting if a particular instance falls into line with one or all of the three rules.

ETA, while also a nationalist European terrorist group like the IRA, is much different

in tactics. The Basque people are ancient, even being mentioned by the Romans, and have

defended their territory for centuries. As legends go, the Basques are to have defeated

Roland, Charlemagne’s rear guard, at the formation of France. They enjoyed considerable

autonomy from 1371 to 1876 and have seven provinces that make up the Basque

homeland. In 2002, the population was around 2 million, although many are not Basque.

Four of the provinces are in Spain and three are in France. Altogether, ETA claims there are

around 1 million Basques living in Spain and 200,000 in France.

Given this massive history of autonomy, it is not surprising that ETA fights for an

independent Basque nation. During and after the Spanish Civil War Francisco Franco bore

out atrocities against the Basque peoples, the most celebrated of which was the bombing of

the town of Guernica in 1937 by Nazi Germany. The Basque people believed that Franco

was trying to eliminate them as he repressed their culture, language, and political rights.

After the end of World War II, ETA formed in 1952 as a response to this (Shepard, 2002).

55

Overtime the group would come to be associated with constant conflict, the want to

establish an independent Basque nation, and the rejection of foreign investment in the

region, NATO, and United States military in the region. Violent, organized attacks became

their weapon of choice. Throughout their history they were a terrorism group as defined at

the end of Section I. They sought a political end through fear and the killing of innocents on

both sides of the conflict.

ETA was official on July 13, 1959, the Saint’s Day of Ignatius Loyola, the most well-

known Basque martyr and founder of the Jesuit order. In 1968, the first killings under the

auspice of ETA took place. At a roadblock a member of the three-man ‘executive committee’

in charge of ETA was stopped by a Guardia Civil (the police). He killed the police officer and

was later killed himself. Type of assassination should not sound unfamiliar to the history of

terrorism as it was carried out successfully by the IRA and the Russians. Other killings

followed, but they were more targeted, aimed at Franco’s regime and those that oppressed

the Basques.

This bears a striking similarity to the beginning of the IRA. They wished to gain

independence by any means necessary and assassinations seemed the more direct route.

And just as the IRA targeted Margaret Thatcher, so too did ETA target the Spanish Prime

Minster at the time, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, who succeeded Franco. Unlike the IRA

however, ETA was successful in their operation. Blanco was killed on December 20, 1973

with the help of 165 pounds of dynamite planted in the street under his car. With the

success of this assassination, ETA’s resolve only deepened and expanded to include more

and more deadly attacks. Over time they would target politicians, reporters, businessmen

56

who refused to pay extortion demands, and the public at large. By 1968, ETA had killed an

estimated 800 people. They also attempted to kill King Juan Carlos multiple times, but did

not succeed. Then in 1974 ETA extremists go on a terror rampage that lasts years.

ETA Attacks by Year: Global Terrorism Database

It is important to note that the ETA did not speak for the entire Basque community

and many condemned their actions. “The Basque question for nationhood may be quixotic,

but it does not lack logic, and it enjoys popular support, quite apart from the terrorist

methods of ETA” (Shepard, 2002). Democratic methods were used often in the Basque

struggle, most notably in the new Constitution of post-Franco Spain in 1978. Because of

that, the Basque began to enjoy extensive autonomy again with its own parliament, police

force (the Ertaintza), tax collection system, health system, and public education system in

the Basque language. Some powers did remain with the Spanish central government; for

example, foreign and defense policy, and national security. But even though the Spanish

central government conceded on some serious points in favor of the Basque people, the

simple fact it that there will never be an autonomous state without a serious change to the

57

present condition. If a referendum passes and the Basque community separates, other

regions in Spanish, such as Catalonia and Galicia will likely follow suit (Shepard, 2002).

The Parliament created in 1978 sought continual peaceful means towards a

solution, but ETA was undeterred and the violence continued, reminiscent of the PIRA or

RIRA in Ireland, they would only be content when their ultimate goal was reached. Serious

repression was still the standard tool used by the Spanish central government as the

attacks continued throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In 1998, in the wake of two pivotal

murders surrounding the ETA violence, the group did declared a truce, which held until

1999. Killings started again in 2000, but were markedly different. This round included car

bombs outside popular Madrid department story and incendiary devices at Spanish airport.

ETA is often compared with the IRA and it is easy to see why.

The leading political party in the Basque parliament, the Basque National Party

(Partido Nacionalista Vasco, or PNV) lead by Juan Jose Ibarretxe, remained in power during

that time and won the elections in 2001. Throughout their time in power, the PNV actively

stood against ETA violence, especially after the brutal murders in the 1990s. They did so by

continually condemning ETA violence and backing independence by legal means. At one

point, they tried to isolate ETA to persuade its members to disarm. But beginning in 2001,

Ibarretxe started to use the Basque police forces to crack down on ETA through a series of

raids.

Perhaps the more irritating fact from the view point of those trying to end ETA reign

of violence was the fact that the group could regenerate, despite having their leaders killed

or imprisoned. They had a steady supply of capital through extortion, kidnapping and

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forced payments of “revolutionary taxes” and their three men ‘executive committee’ could

replace any member at a moment’s notice. But should they be so foolish as to pursue their

goal of “Let us get our way, or things will get much worse” and attack tourists, particularly

American tourists, any chance of benevolent government action would cease to exist

(Shepard, 2002). With this understanding came the need to create legislation that would

ardently adhere to rules one and two.

With this sort of history, Spain has had a counterterrorism strategy that is centered

on criminal punishments and has evolved, and in so doing following rule one, although not

as much as the U.K. or U.S. did. In 1977, during the height of ETA attacks, the Spanish

central government established the National Court to try ETA criminals away from

sympathetic peers, going as far to house ETA criminals outside of the Basque Provinces in

different prisons throughout the country. In 2000, the extolling of terrorism through

speech or other forms of public expression was outlawed (Bardaji & Cosido, 2003).

After 9/11, Spain found itself in a unique position. It had experience in

counterterrorism and was the current Presidency rotation of the European Council. Its

initial support came in accompanying the United States during the beginning of the War in

Iraq. In regards to police force, it was where counterterrorism strategy was formed during

ETA attacks and that is where it remained. It is possible to say that Spain was not evolving

their counterterrorism policy in a manner befitting this new threat or falling into a bit of a

God complex problem, but that could also be said of the other two examples in this paper

before their large attacks in 2001 and 2005. Spain simply had not yet received the trauma

necessary for a large scale evolutionary step. Nevertheless, post 9/11 Spain did focused on

59

augmenting current policies and a few new institutions were made to handle the ‘new

threats.’ The trauma experienced by another nation coupled with its own experience with

ETA had shown that small, constructive change was needed.

At the time there were only three institutions that handled counterterrorism, which

is drastically different from the United States or the U.K.. Spain is following rule three in the

way that works best for it. First was the Cuerpo National de Policia (the Urban Police, the

Guardia Civil (the Civil Guard, responsible for the country side), and the Audiencia National

(the National Court which operates within the Ministry of the Interior and tries all

terrorism cases). The only new additions came when older institutions received a breath of

fresh air. The chemical, radiological, biological, and nuclear (CRBN) operation was renewed

and Spain’s Higher Defense Intelligence Center was reorganized and renamed the National

Center of Intelligence (Van de Linde, 2002).

The attacks of March 11, 2004 (known as 11M (Marzo)) had a relatively short

timeline compared to other major global attacks. Three commuter trains left the station at

Alcala de Henares, about 12 km east of Madrid, while a fourth left from Guadalajara; all

within 15 minutes of each other with the first leaving at 6:00am GMT (see map on

following page). As each of the trains passed through Alacala de Henares, backpacks

containing 22lbs of explosives and nails (Hamilos & Tran, 2007) were loaded on board into

specific carriages. At 6:39am local time the first train arrived at Atocha station and three

bombs exploded in the third, fourth, and sixth carriages, killing at 34 people.

Simultaneously on a second train outside Atocha station, four bombs exploded in the first,

fourth, and sixth carriages, killing at least 59.

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At 6:41am, as the third train passed through El Pozo station, two bombs exploded in

the fourth and fifth carriages, killing at least 70. And finally at 6:42am, as the fourth train

passed through Santa Eugenia station, a bomb exploded in the fourth carriage, killing at

least 17 (“Madrid attacks timeline”, 2004). Each device was detonated by a mobile phone

and used a dynamite-like explosive like Goma 2-E, a gelatinous, nitroglycerin-based

explosive that is typically used in mining (Golden & Johnson, 2004) or Titadine (Golden &

Don Van, 2004). At 9:27am, all incoming trains to Madrid were stopped due to the fear of

further explosions. The official toll was 191 dead and around 1,800 wounded (“Madrid

attacks timeline,” 2004).

Map of the Madrid Bombings (Scioline, 2004)

The first days after the attacks consisted of investigation, identifications, and the

entire country taking the time to mourn the fallen. King Juan Carlos urged calm saying,

“Men, women, children, free citizens of all ages and occupation, even from other countries,

on their way to their destinations, schools and work, have found themselves brutally

confronted with death and suffering. [Our only course of action] is unity, firmness, and

serenity” (Scioline, 2004).

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The initial suspects in the bombings were ETA because the group had been known

to use Goma 2-E (Golden &Johnson, 2004), the bombings came three days before the

national elections which are a point of tension for the group, and on the previous Christmas

Eve, two ETA collaborators planted backpack bombs on a train headed from the northern

city of Irun towards Madrid. However, two events changed the initial blame. The first was a

claim of responsibility in the name of al-Qaeda which was received by al-Quds al-Arabi, an

Arabic newspaper in London (Vitzthum, Johnson & Champion, 2004). The second was the

discovery of a van in Alacla de Henares which contained the detonators to the bombs and a

tape with verses from the Qur’an (Goldmen & Johnson, 2004). The standing theory for the

reasoning behind the attacks is because of Spain’s support for the United States invasion of

Iraq in 2003.

In October 2007, a Spanish judge found 21 people guilty and acquitted seven. Three

of the eight main suspects received sentences of nearly 40,000 years each, but under

Spanish law could only serve the maximum sentence of 40 years. Four other lead

defendants were acquitted of murder, but convicted of lesser charges and fourteen others

were found guilty of lesser charges such as belonging to a terrorist group. Despite evidence

linking them to Islamic terrorist groups, there are still lingering doubts among academics

that ETA was in fact, behind the attacks, but given the monumental amount of evidence to

the contrary, many believe that the defendants were rightly accused and convicted

(Hamilos & Tran, 2007).

Just like the U.K. after 7/7 and the United States after 9/11, Spain was hit with an

emotional need to protect their citizens by pushing through legislation. However, Spain

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was not so overcome that the huge pieces of legislation passed were later completely

repealed. They did stick with what they knew had worked against ETA and augmented it to

fight a specific hole; Spain’s policy was evolving.

Naturally, the police force received the biggest and quickest boost through budget

increases and subsequently more personnel; newly appointed Minister of the Interior Jose

Antonia Alonse saw to that. This was because of the role that the police force had played in

the past combating terrorism. In one of his first post-11M speeches, he said: “…the Police

and Guardia Civil information services have told us two things: one, that we clearly have to

increase the resources and personnel available to the eternal information units…and two,

they always told us that we should create a professional structure that can receive

information, analyze it, assess the risks of the new terrorism, [and] consequently, make

operational recommendations to the police and Guardia Civil” (Reinares, 2009). Rules to

and three were hit square on the head.

Because of this, the police started pursuing al-Qaeda related leads immediately

following the attacks, which lead to the aforementioned convictions (Dannenbaum, 2011).

An earlier change to the penal code in response to 7/7 had allowed the Spanish

government to evolve to handle a new threat in a manner that would integrate well into

existing procedures. The penal code had been amended to cover “the manufacture,

manipulations, transport, possession or marketing of (I) explosives, (II)flammable,

corrosive, toxic or asphyxiating substances, or (III) any other matter, device or artifice that

may cause destruction” (Gómez-Céspedes & Domínguez, 2006).

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Following along similar lines to the U.K. and the United States, Spain also saw that a

lack of intelligence cooperation had led to the attacks and to combat that from happening in

the future, new provisions had to be made going along with rule three. This took the form

of the Comité Ejecutivo para el Mando Unificado (the executive committee for the unified

command of the national security forces, CEMU) and subsequently, El Centro National de

Coordinación Antiterrorista (National Counter-Terrorism Center, CNCA). Among the

reports on 11M, coordination both among police forces and from within them was a serious

problem in the aftermath of the attack. CEMU was a direct result of this. It is aimed at

preventing and responding to the different varieties of terrorism that pose challenges to

Spain, including ETA, with specific attention given to al-Qaeda-related terrorism.

The CNCA grew out of the CEMU. Its functions include “regular assessments of

terrorism risks and threats to Spain, assessments that provide high-quality strategic

intelligence that includes possible scenarios for intervention and operational

recommendations for dealing with such risks and threats” (Reinares, 2004). The CNCA

functions much like a large fusion center in the United States and not surprisingly has

regular contact with similar institutions in other European, Western, Arab, and Asian

countries. This center is a huge step forward for Spanish intelligence cooperation. Although

the Spanish authorities had decades of dealings with ETA, it was not until the bombings in

Madrid that the decision was made to create a special institution with members of various

security forces that could jointly access the situation and coordinate counterterrorism

activities.

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The ability of Spain’s counterterrorism policy to readily accommodate a new type of

threat shows that it is very adaptable, fulfilling rule one. A large reason for this is that it is

geared more towards criminal activities than to terrorism in general. As seen in the first

section, nailing down a definition of terrorism can lead to an inability to deal with a

problem. With Spain, this was not an issue because the crimes were ultimately what the

courts and government punished. There is no ‘gap problem’ for someone to wiggle their

way out of a conviction. The laws are solid and do their job well and thanks to the new

intelligence community reforms it should continue to thrive.

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IV. Lesson Learned?

The two large questions to be answered here are: did in fact each central

government of the specific country learn from the impact of historical terrorist groups and

apply those lessons to the future interactions with modern terrorist groups and did those

changes follow the three rules as outlined above? Using the detailed examples above, the

answer to the first question is yes and the reason for that answer will be covered in the first

part of this section. As for the second question, the answer is a conditional yes. Each

country did apply the rules, but on different levels. The reasoning for this answer will be

covered in the later part of this section.

The overarching theme of this paper was to see if a country can indeed learn from

its past. This is an important aspect of any life and is equally as important in the life of a

government and counterterrorism policy. Each of the examples above has shown that they

have learned from the past. In the case of the United States they learned that the God

complex that the FBI can suffer from when pursuing a terrorist group is neither helpful or a

productive use of time. After the failure to arrest members of the WU because of illegally

obtained evidence, the U.S. government sought better and more reliable means to stop and

catch terrorist acts. More responsibility was given to different agencies and the workload

was spread out and not contained in a small Squad 47 style. The U.S. does suffer from a lack

of sustained, concentrated domestic terrorism, the likes of which are seen in the U.K. or

Spain.

Reflecting on the example of the U.K., the lessons learned in the struggle against the

IRA have helped in the struggle against al-Qaeda terrorism. Though the lesson learned are

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not perfectly transmissible, they are useful to apply in a broad context. One of the lessons

that the U.K. learned and has since applied is that a pure fight against a terrorist threat

doesn’t work. Terrorism is not something that can be beaten into submission like the Black

and Tans tried to do in Ireland. Instead, counterterrorism is something that requires

constant community interaction on the ground level.

Another lesson learned by the U.K. that has subsequently been applied is that in

order to end the use of terrorism by a specific group, you need to understand where the

group is coming from; what is its history? At the beginning of their counterterrorism

strategy, the U.K. thought that Irish nationalism would just go away if it beat it down hard

enough. After years of trying that strategy, the British government learned that it needed to

talk with the other side and figure out something that worked, if only partially, for both

sides. Only then would a ceasefire last and political progress through Sein Fein take the

front seat.

Finally, the lessons learned from Spain’s dealing with ETA are sometimes you need

to go backwards in order to go forwards. Unlike the U.S. and the U.K., Spain benefitted from

going backward. For centuries, the Basque homeland had enjoyed independence. When the

Spanish central government had tried and failed to stop ETA’s violent ways, they decided

that perhaps the past didn’t just offer lessons, but rather a direct plan of action. A level of

Basque independence has served both parties well.

Seeing how each of three illustrative examples have evolved and adapted

throughout their experiences dealing with terrorism shows a lot about how future

incidents will be dealt with. They have each strived to improve the nature of their

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counterterrorism polices. The United States learned that one agency hunting down the WU

through illegal means won’t work, the British government learned that attempting to beat

your colony into submission is not a means to a fruitful end, and Spain learned that

sometimes historical precedent can be the answer. This section will begin with comparing

the three cases studies and how well the follow the rules and end by answering one final

question about counterterrorism policy.

Three Rules:

1. Counterterrorism policies must be able to evolve and adapt.

2. Counterterrorism policies must endeavor to gain a holistic view of the situation.

3. Counterterrorism cannot be handled by one agency. It is no place for a God complex. It is a place for teamwork.

Rule one is the easiest to measure. Each country inevitably evolves with their

policies, which is a good thing. But it is the nature of that evolution that can bring more

troubles. In a 2006 article, Amy Zegart discusses adaptation, as it related to evolution of

policy, as displaying a magnitude of change and that the changes must result in an

improved fit. The magnitude of change can involve a large change or a series of small

changes, either is acceptable. When organizational boundaries shift, or gain major, new,

nonroutine tasks or when they go about their old tasks with a substantially different

structures, process, or belief, they have gone through adaptation, and not just a simple

change.

The improved fit can also be a deal-breaker. If a policy has a series of small changes,

but they fail to address the problems that lead to a change then it has failed to adapt. An

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improved fit can come through a change in organizational structure or fitting a new policy

to combat a new threat. Each case is unique.

The United States has had a very tough time adapting their counterterrorism policy

over the years, but not entirely by their fault. The WU presents a very different threat than

al-Qaeda. Had the two been more similar, the policy might have transferred more readily.

Nonetheless, as the al-Qaeda threat evolved, the United States did make massive attempts

to adapt with new legislation and creating new working groups like the CTC to specifically

manage the problem at hand. However, the United States tends to make sweeping changes

to counterterrorism policies only after a trauma; that reactionary process backfires when

emotions run high as seen with the Patriot Act. Over all the US is good at realizing that

changes are needed, but the follow-through is lacking. Once the emotions dissipate, The

United States cannot afford to fall into complacency. Each policy must be continually

evaluated.

The U.K. has also managed to evolve, but on a much smaller scale due to their

experience with terrorism and the IRA. Massive changes have occurred in rare instances,

but it has been more a case of small changes over a long period of time. As discussed above,

the massive changes due to the Prevention of Terrorism Act in 2005 were rushed through,

just like the Patriot Act in the United States. Again, this has a lot to do with emotions in the

span right after the event. The legislative changes that have occurred since 2005 show a

much more measured tone; with Parliament even going so far to say that they recognize

the mistakes of passing a large piece of legislation quickly in a time of high emotion. Part of

adapting is recognizing this fact and reconciling it through future legislation. Over all the

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U.K. has done a better job here than the United States, but also cannot afford to let

legislation fall by the wayside once it has been passed.

Lastly, Spain has similar markings in this rule to the U.K.. The small changes and

relative simplicity of the counterterrorism policies have made it easy to adapt as the threat

evolves. When specific changes were needed in relation to explosives, post 11-M, those

changes were made. The ultimate change, however, came when Spain came to the

conclusion that to go forward, they must go backwards. The counterterrorism policy

evolved in both a large and small way at the same time, a feat that has not been matched by

the other two countries.

With reference to the second rule of endeavoring to gain a holistic view, each

country receives high marks. Community policing has increased as well as cultural

awareness, which are so vital to counterterrorism. There have been problems with civil

liberties in this area especially because community policing and increased ground

intelligence is tricky when it comes to finding an appropriate balance between fishing

expeditions and legitimate investigations.

The U.S.’s efforts to expand its community policing efforts and increased ground

surveillance have shown its willingness to understand the problem in addition to dealing

with it criminally. This can also be seen in the U.K.’s expanded community policing efforts,

and especially in its specific community outreaches. Both countries know that to prevent

the next attack they must know why the attack to place, why those specific people were

involved, and what might be done at the ground level to help those prone to terrorist

methods to choose a more peaceful resolution. Spain has followed rule two as well, but in a

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much different way. Instead of adding, it subtracted and replaced government policing

inside Basque country with Basque police inside Basque country. This works alongside the

level of independence afforded to the Basques.

Finally, all three countries have done well in disappearing their God complexes of

old, though some hints do linger. In the United States, this is shown most effectively

through the fusion process that has flourished recently. The massive network of fusion

centers in the United States not to mention the mosaic of the DHS has greatly increased the

understanding of different terrorist organizations. In Spain the way that the Spanish police,

Basque police, and Ministry of the Interior functions as a unit that know that it cannot

possibly cover all of Spain shows vast improvement. Along with this is the delegation of

certain powers and responsibilities to the Basque region which shows not only that the

central government accepts that they cannot coexist with the Basque people without some

sort of compromise, but that they are confident a previously hostile enemy has changed in

a massive way. The U.K. has also shown this in a huge way by the combining of special

operating groups that now fall under the same mandate.

This paper sought to not look at the outcomes of change, but rather the change itself.

The outcomes maybe covered at other times, but how countries change as a result of

actions is the purpose here. Each country, through many leaders and political parties took

away something different from events. What Margaret Thatcher took away from the

bombings in Brighton is completely different from what Tony Blair took away from his time

and experience with the IRA. The same goes for the other two countries.

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When it comes to comparing the three countries side by side, it is impossible to

completely compare every aspect of the events and lessons. There are too many variables

to consider. But, the wide comparisons made within this paper do offer some insight into

counterterrorism policy and that was the goal here. This paper was intended to give a

broad overview of the situation and lessons that can be learned.

Each person in a country is an important part of the policy and there is always some

new, innovative idea. This topic will be covered as long as terrorism is alive in the world.

Lessons learned at all level of counterterrorism are important to continuing debate

surround the policies. At the conclusion of this paper, the author hopes that the second rule

of counterterrorism, the endeavor to present a holistic view, has been fulfilled.

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Appendix 1: The 3 Rules of Counterterrorism Policy

Rule 1: Counterterrorism policies must be able to evolve. In the absence of the prefect

evolutionary policy, small, constant, constructive changes are acceptable.

Rule 2: Counterterrorism policies must endeavor to gain a holistic view of the problem at

hand.

Rule 3: Counterterrorism is not to be handled by a single entity. It is no place for a God

complex. It is a place for teamwork.

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Appendix 2: ACRONYMS

11M: 11 Marzo (March 11, 2007 Madrid Bombings) CEMU: Comité Ejecutivo para el Mando Unificado (the executive committee

for the unified command of the national security forces, Spain) CNCA: El Centro National de Coordinación Antiterrorista (National Counter-

Terrorism Center, Spain) COBRA: Cabinet Office Briefing Room A (UK) CONTEST: Counter-Terrorism Strategy (UK, 2002 & 2005) CRBN: Chemical, Radiological, Biological, and Nuclear CTC: Counter Terrorism Center (US) CTU: Counter Terrorism Unit (UK) DHS: Department of Homeland Security (US) DOD: Department of Defense (US) ETA: Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (Basque Homeland and Freedom, Spain) FDNY: Fire Department of New York IRA: Irish Republican Army IRTPA: Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (US, 2004) JTAC: Joint Terrorism Action Center (UK, 2003) NSL: National Security Letter (US) PAPD: Port Authority Police Department (US) PIRA: Provisional Irish Republican Army PLO: Palestinian Liberation Organization PNV: Partido Nacionalista Vasco (Basque Nationalist Party, Spain) PTA: Prevention of Terrorism Act (UK, 2005) RIRA: Real Irish Republican Army TACT: Terrorism Act (UK, 2001) USA PATRIOT ACT: Uniting and Strengthening American by Providing Appropriate Tools

Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act (US, 2001) WU: Weather Underground (US)

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