Tactical Insights From The Trial

by Stefan Leader and Aaron Danis

Tactical Insights From The Trial

Stefan Leader and Aaron Danis

The operational cycle

Former Al-Qaeda member L'Houssaine Kherchtou testified that according to his Afghan training, there are four groups involved in attacking a target. The surveillance group collects information on targets and sends it to the bosses who decide which target to attack. The bosses send a logistical group to provide the weapons and explosives needed to attack the target. A fourth group carries out the attack.

Odeh said that terrorist operations were divided between two cells. One cell conducts all the logistics and planning, including surveillance and building the bomb. The second cell carries out the attack. Al Owhali said that the cell has four sections: intelligence, administration (logistics), planning and preparation, and execution.

Despite minor discrepancies, the basic functions of the cell and the operational procedures taught in the training camps generally correlate with the attack on the embassies. From the trial transcripts, it appears that initial surveillance was done in 1994- 95, three to four years before the attack was carried out.

Target selection

Analysts believe religiously motivated terrorists are more willing to carry out mass casualty attacks than politically motivated terrorists because they feel they are doing God's will. Despite some security around the US embassies, (guards, walls, gates and access controls), the facilities apparently were considered easy targets, perhaps because of a lack of stand-off distance and the fact that host-nation guards were unarmed.

An FBI agent testified that Al Owhali told him that the Nairobi embassy was chosen as a target because it was occupied by many US citizens, including press and military attaches and intelligence officers; it was easy to hit; and it had a female ambassador whose death would result in more publicity.

Al Owhali said that during his Afghan training he was told that Al- Qaeda target priorities were US military bases, US diplomatic missions and posts, and kidnapping ambassadors. FBI agent Abigail Perkins testified that defendant Khalfan Khamis Mohammad said that terrorists prefer to target embassies and civilians because the military is too difficult to hit. Al Owhali said that the organiser of the embassy bombing claimed that attacks on US facilities abroad would pave the way for attacks inside the USA. The time of the attack (Friday, between 1030 and 1100) was chosen because most Muslims would be in mosques at prayer or on their way to mosques.

Ali Mohammad was the first person to link Bin Laden directly to the attacks in Africa. He said Bin Laden once asked him to scout out the embassy in Kenya. "I took pictures, drew diagrams and wrote a report," Mohammad said when he entered his guilty plea in October 2000. "Bin Laden looked at the picture of the American embassy and pointed to where a truck could go as a suicide bomber."

Surveillance techniques

Kherchtou described a reconnaissance mission of the US Embassy in Nairobi in 1994-95. He said he often saw three Al-Qaeda members developing photographs in his apartment and once saw one of them near the embassy with a camera. Kherchtou said that one of the men who visited his home was Al-Qaeda operative Ali Mohammad.

Kherchtou testified that in the 1980s he took a two-week surveillance seminar taught by Mohammad in a military training camp in Pakistan. He was trained to use different cameras, develop the pictures, and to take pictures holding the camera so that the surveillant is not looking through it. The surveillant would then write a report that would include a target description, diagrams, maps, and photos.

Target descriptions included rooms; wall size, location and height; location of lights and doors, and number of people present. The reports could be put on computer disks, making them easier to carry and conceal. Odeh told the FBI that in difficult circumstances, the surveillant would set up a food stand or buy a nearby shop in order to observe the target and look for weaknesses. Another technique was to send a person (a 'walk-in') inside the target to take get a first-hand look, and to ask questions to assess the quality of the security. Al Owhali also said that the leader of the cell was trained to do target site surveys and still and video photography.

The descriptions given are consistent with long-standing terrorist surveillance practices. By using former US Army Sergeant Ali Mohammad to conduct the initial surveillance, the cell was able to exploit his knowledge of US approaches to security.

Training, weapons and explosives

At least seven types of training took place in the Sudanese and Afghan camps, including Islamic law and jihad; explosives and advanced explosives training; small arms training; assassination training (including the use of chemicals, poisons and toxins); hand- to-hand combat; physical fitness; operational principles, including collecting target intelligence and communications. Some individuals were sent to specialist schools for training in electronics and flying aircraft.

Details are incomplete, but explosives training appeared to involve the identification, making and handling of various types of explosives (TNT, C3, C4, etc.), including the mixing of chemicals; modifying dynamite by grinding it into a powder; and familiarisation with various military explosive devices such as grenades, mines (anti-personnel, anti-tank, anti-truck), and rockets. According to one witness, this was a 15-day course. Advanced and more advanced explosives courses were said to run for 45 and 60 days respectively.

Al-Qaeda also trained people in electronics, such as the use of off- the-shelf components (encoders, radios, watches) to make remote and other types of detonators. One defendant stated that he knew how to build a directed charge by putting metal around the TNT to direct the blast. This sounds similar to public descriptions of the bomb used in the USS Cole attack in Yemen in October 2000.

Some Al-Qaeda members trained with Hizbullah in Lebanon in using explosives to destroy large buildings. Direct explosives training appears to be supplemented by a detailed 1,000-page Encyclopedia of Jihad contained on a computer disk made available to recruits. Another training manual, Military Studies in the Jihad Against Tyrants, introduced into evidence at the trial, points out that explosives are believed to be the safest weapon because they allow warriors to 'get away from enemy personnel and to avoid being arrested', and they 'strike the enemy with sheer terror and fright'.

Small arms training included the use of standard assault rifles such as the AK-47, M-16, Uzi, pistols, and the use and firing of rocket- propelled grenades. Assassination training was described as "learning to kill people quietly'. One chapter of the Encyclopedia of Jihad deals extensively with poisons suitable for use in assassinations. Training in operational principles is believed to include target surveillance (of both people and buildings, using various types of cameras), communications (writing reports and use of computers), use of forged documents, and cell organisation and security.

Tactics

Odeh said that the Nairobi attack was a "blunder'' because so many civilians were killed, according to FBI agent John Anticev. Odeh felt his colleagues made a mistake by putting the bomb in the back of a pickup truck. "He said the truck should have backed into the building closely.'' Instead the truck came in "nose first"' and the force of the explosion ricocheted off the cab of the truck, causing many deaths in the vicinity. Odeh stated that, as a general rule, the best place to put explosives is inside the target building, but the best alternative is to get as close as possible.

Al Owhali's attack mission as a passenger in the bomb vehicle was to fire a gun and toss stun grenades to force guards to lift gates at the embassy so the truck could get close to the embassy walls. Al Owhali said the bomb consisted of TNT, aluminum nitrate, and aluminum powder packed in the back of the truck in wooden crates. There was a contingency plan: if the electrical detonator failed to work, it was Al Owhali's job to toss a grenade into the back of the truck to ensure that the bomb went off.

At the embassy the suicide driver Azzam drove the truck to a parking lot in back. Al Owhali jumped out, ready to force the guard to lift the gate, but he suddenly realised that he had left his pistol in the truck. The guard refused to open the gate, so Al Owhali tossed a grenade at the guard and people began to run, including Al Owhali. The gate was not raised so Azzam apparently pulled the truck forward as much as possible and detonated the bomb.

Al Owhali claimed he originally had asked Kenya cell leader Saleh about trying to get the bomb into the underground parking garage at the embassy, where it could cause more damage. Saleh said it would be too difficult to get past the second drop gate at the entrance to the parking garage ramp.

One cell planned and carried out both bombings. Saleh bragged to Al Owhali that he was able to get the second, Tanzanian, vehicle bomb ready in only 10 days. That bomb also consisted of TNT, according to Al Owhali, but a number of oxygen tanks and gas canisters were added to increase fragmentation. The suicide driver for that attack, reportedly named Ahmad Abdallah, carried a cell phone in case Saleh needed to change the mission. Khalfan Khamis Mohammad stated that the vehicle bomb was built in a refrigeration truck. The gas cylinders were placed in the frame and then 20 boxes of TNT were loaded among the tanks so that gas cylinders and boxes of TNT alternated until the interior of the frame was full. Several bags of fertiliser and some sandbags were added to fill the gaps and stabilise the load. A partition of wood and metal was placed in the very rear of the truck so that the bomb would be concealed from anyone opening the truck's doors.

While the Kenya cell had a plan to get through the first embassy gate with the vehicle bomb, the plan apparently was not rehearsed. The subsequent poor execution of the plan prevented the bombers from getting the bomb inside the compound. Meanwhile, at the US embassy in Tanzania, the driver prematurely detonated the vehicle bomb while waiting in line behind a large water truck at the gate, approximately 35-50 feet from the embassy wall. The water truck probably absorbed some of the blast, also reducing damage to the building.

Stefan Leader is a senior security analyst and terrorism specialist with Eagle Research Group, Inc, a consultancy, in Germantown, Maryland, USA. Aaron Danis is an intelligence analyst with the US government.