Chapter 34 - What does the intelligence mean? (1)

December 27, City K Military Base

Matthew entered his office ignoring everyone shutting the door firmly behind him before pulling out his laptop from the protective pocket he kept it in and turning it on. The bulk of the intelligence he had to look at was material that he had brought with him, but he had, through a little-known military intranet service been provided with other doc.u.ments and transcripts to look at.

He hated the title those in the intelligence group in the capital had given him 'The Devil Expert'. He had simply been lucky with a number on analysis over the year that had generally predicted what the Devil would do and had in fact stopped a couple of his actions.

The problem was over his almost fifteen-year terrorism career, the Devil constantly reinvented himself. No-one initially could see his existence until the attach that killed the vice-president, his wife and others ten years ago, and it was Matthew's analysis of historical data that lead him to conclude that there was a terrorist moving from group to group, seeming to use them.

The remembered that analysis, like he had done it yesterday. The intelligence training had them read from world-wide academic literature concepts of terrorism. The concept that had seemed to grab his attention unlike many others undertaking the course with his was the so-called waves underlying terrorism descripted by David Rapoport and added to by authors including Jeffrey Kaplan. Matthew, while liking their simple elegance to explain matters realised that they were not the sole explanation.

However, looking at that incident and backwards to other incidents, he started to see a pattern with terrorism incidents that appeared to initially be unlinked. Their similarity was in the way that the incidents were executed. That made him dive into the analysis of those groups and seeing commonalities and where they fitted based around theories that abounded in the academic literature.

Yes, he understood that academic were simply interested in the theory, but they could have good ideas. Rapoport and those who expanded on his work, explained the development of groups from the Irish Republican Army and the Palestinian Liberation Organization that ended up reinventing themselves, through to modern groups including ISIS/ISIL.

What he found, was that the groups, other than a nationalist group that had been around for decades, being apparently founded at the same time as the Irish Republic Army, all the main terrorist attacks that had similarities fitted within the identified waves. The attacks all were well organised and pulled off with precision. Nothing was left to chance with them, and unlike many other incidents succeeded in causing trouble.

The raids that then targeted the organisations after their successful attack all had commonalities in what was found. They would fight their way in with group members sacrificing themselves to hamper them, an escape exit and outside that exit a group that were killed. When they looked inside the facilities, it always appeared that certain hard drives were removed, and all the balance of computer equipment was degaussed to prevent information from being found.

The only thing of any use that was found, was paperwork in respect to the attack that prompted the raid, setting out how the attack was to be conducted. It was always totally accurate as to how the attack had been undertaken.

Unlike anyone else, Matthew made the conclusion that for over five years, that there had been someone manipulating the various ideological groups for their own means to conduct the attacks. They came in, became senior in the group quickly most likely with a few key people around them, came up with an attack on the basis that it would drive the groups cause forward, see that attack done, and when the authorities closed in would leave the junior people in the organisation there to fight to the death to allow this person and the senior organisation members to 'escape'. But it was never escape for the senior organisation members as this person, who he called the Devil and his key personal who he called his minions, would go out the escape route first and when the senior organisation members followed them a few minutes later they would be murdered allowing the Devil and his minions a clean escape.

Detailed Author note:

While I could add more and more about theories of terrorism, this story is not about academics, but Matthew's role means that he has had training for a member of the special forces but has had theoretical and practical training about terrorism. Everyone will come up with different ideas about terrorism and I cannot wait to read the first argument about one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter.

Terrorism itself even academically is constantly debated. Matthew, as a consequence of his training has had exposure to some of the concepts that are endlessly debated in such studies, and has read the real life articles by David C Rapoport "The Four Waves of Modern Terrorism" that can be accessed at international.ucla.edu/media/files/Rapoport-Four-Waves-of-Modern-Terrorism.pdf (plus a number of other locations) and that of Jeffrey Kaplan describes in "Terrorism's Fifth Wave: A Theory, Conundrum and a Dilemma" Perspectives on Terrorism 2008 Volume 2, No 2, terrorismanalysts.com/pt/index.php/pot/article/view/26/html

Whether or not the theories of Rapoport and Kaplan are right, is not something for debate in a romance novel (as this is), but Matthew likes their simplicity to help understand and analyse terrorism using it as one of his tools!