13 April 2006
Terrorists' Tactics Changing, Says FBI Official
No longer awaiting orders, attackers are self-financed, decentralized
By David Anthony Denny
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- The terrorism paradigm has changed markedly from the days before the September 11, 2001, attacks, says John Miller, FBI assistant director for public affairs.
Terrorism training has changed from hands-on instruction at particular facilities to Internet-based correspondence courses, Miller said at a April 11 Foreign Press Center briefing.
Moreover, in pre-9/11 days, al-Qaida and other terrorist groups were hierarchical "in a kind of paramilitary way,” Miller said. “There was a boss, in that case, Osama bin Laden; an 'under-boss,' [and] captains who ran crews of operators." From an investigator's standpoint, he said, the groups had a structure similar to that of an organized-crime family.
Since the defeat of Afghanistan's Taliban regime and the killing or capture of many al-Qaida leaders, that group's structure now has become "almost … a movement or a state of mind," Miller said.
Under the previous configuration, Miller said, a terrorist cell, to carry out a planned operation, would have gone to its controlling entity to explain the plot and request logistical help, training and money for things like false documents or bomb-making expertise, he said.
Now, Miller explained, these cells practice "a kind of do-it-yourself terrorism," where they use the Internet to learn how to conduct surveillance, plan a terrorist operation or make bombs and other devices.
"[W]e've gone from having a university for terrorism to having a correspondence course over a computer," he said.
Because of this shift, Miller said, sleeper cells -- small groups which before would have been planted in a country to await signals from headquarters to put a plan into action -- now could be described as "self-starter cells."
Such groups put themselves together, he said, based on mutual agreement about using violence and fear to achieve political or social change, then raise their own money and plan and carry out their own operations.
"That is more realistic today than the concept of al-Qaida-run sleeper cells," Miller said.
Before working for the U.S. government, Miller spent 20 years as a television journalist for NBC and ABC. In 1998, while with ABC, he interviewed al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden.
"[I]t makes me one of the few people in the FBI who's actually met with him among the very, very many who would very much like to," Miller said.
The transcript of Miller's remarks is available on the State Department Web site.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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