DEALING WITH AQAP
While no group has yet claimed responsibility for last week’s Yemen mailbomb plot, the involvement of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) seems almost certain: the origination in Yemen, the use of PETN, the similarities with the Christmas Day attack and the source of the intelligence are the strongest possible indicators of a connection. But who exactly are AQAP?
AQAP has become the most active operational franchise of Al-Qaeda outside of Pakistan. In recent months, AQAP communiqués and Inspire have called for low-risk, low-cost and high-pay-off attacks against Western targets and into Saudi Arabia.
The group has developed a reputation for innovation. On 28th August, 2009, the Saudi deputy minister of Interior, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, survived an AQAP assassination attempt by a suicide bomber with a device concealed in his underwear. The bomb was made from PETN. In the case of the Christmas Day plot, the same method of concealment was used to carry 80 grammes of PETN aboard the transatlantic flight. The bomber carried a syringe with a chemical initiator designed to trigger the explosions.
US intelligence officials believe that Ibrahim Hassan Tali al-Asiri, a Saudi-born member of AQAP was responsible for making both bombs, and is the likely author of the latest incident. He is described a highly trained bomb maker and the brother of the suicide bomber that attempted to kill Prince Mohammed. He remains at large.
Cargo security failings
Recent events appear to demonstrate AQAP’s ability to identify and target security vulnerabilities. Having failed to execute an attack using a passenger-borne device at the end of 2009, the group looks to have to switched to a more exposed target.
Weaknesses in air freight security have been highlighted repeatedly by security experts and academics since 9/11 without achieving significant change to international standards. The volume and scale of air cargo worldwide is so vast, that there is significant resistance from carriers and end users to screening every package at an airport. By comparison, security checks for passenger aircraft and luggage are much stricter. There is no universal mechanism for screening freight cargo, with some countries relying purely on sniffer dogs. The fact that the packages were sent from Yemen to a Jewish organisation indicates that very little scrutiny was given to individual packages, and that the ‘risk-based approach’ favoured in the Chicago Convention is not evenly applied.
A continued threat from Yemen
In the coming days, Western governments will enact further security measures in an attempt to contain the threat to aviation from Al-Qaeda affiliates. But AQAP’s relatively unfettered existence in Yemen continues to pose a international threat. It seems that the group currently lacks the resources to maintain any significant tempo for international operations. It has carried out two attacks in 10 months, both of which are sophisticated and ambitious, but relatively small scale in their execution. It is improbably that it will rapidly develop the capabilities to increase the frequency of attacks of this sort. But AQAP evidently does have the means to be creative and to seek out weak links in security measures in pursuit of a spectacular attack.
Last week, intelligence succeeded where security failed. That will not always be the case. It is certain that AQAP will continue to push at the door while it seeks to build capability inside Western nations. It is likely the group’s innovations will eventually produce a successful large attack against a Western target. That will probably occur in the Gulf region than elsewhere, but the group’s proven preoccupation with aviation, and its developing expertise in deploying concealed high explosives, suggests that its horizons remain firmly international.
Dr. David Claridge is managing director of Janusian Security Risk Management (www.janusian.com).