ABSTRACT

This chapter attempts to assess the effectiveness, in terms of operational and technical innovation, of the tradecraft in pre-incident counter-surveillance by al-Qaeda and its affiliates. It focuses on conceptual framework is developed based on the components of pre-incident adversarial surveillance that terrorist groups and their operatives employ to evade and counter in order to launch their planned terrorist operations. The chapter presents a discussion of selected cases of terrorist operations by al-Qaeda and its affiliates where their attempts at counter-surveillance played a role in the success or failure of these plots, based on the surveillance measures that were employed against them by their counter-terrorism adversaries. Although these are indirect surveillance methods, terrorist operatives need to evade surveillance by social networking analysis (SNA) tools and databases that create maps of their organizational-related networks and activities based on the collected data about them. Safeguarding personal computers is another important concern for terrorists' counter-surveillance.