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Counterfeiting
Abstract
Jihādi agents often have to use false documents to disguise their identity and nationality. This common intelligence practise applies to Jihādi groups as well as state agencies. In both cases, individuals involved in intelligence gathering or covert operations may require false or forged passports. The element of safe travel is also significant and important for Jihādi groups and the planning of their operations, while ISIS in particular has managed to use forgeries in the area of propaganda as well.KeywordsCounterfeit PassportsSafe TravelPLOPropaganda
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Thirty‐eight ISIS defectors from Syria, Western Europe, and the Balkans interviewed over the last year in our ISIS Defectors Interviews Project reported about life inside ISIS and their reasons for ultimately risking their lives to escape. The defectors also shared their observations of the ISIS intelligence operation—known in Arabic as the " Emni. " From the defectors' detailed stories, supplemented with journalists' reports, and our own experiences interviewing terrorists over the years, we have been able to piece together a chilling view of the structure, leadership,
The authors hadn't intended to put themselves in danger but that's what happened as they interviewed an unprecedented thirty-two battle-hardened defectors about the gritty details of life inside ISIS. With unparalleled breadth, depth and access, ISIS Defectors: Inside Stories of the Terrorist Caliphate offers a compelling view of ISIS from men, women and teens now in hiding, having escaped the most brutal terrorist group in recent history. They were fighters and commanders, wives of fighters-living and dead, female enforcers, and Cubs of the Caliphate, including a child who volunteered and almost got sent as a suicide bomber at age thirteen. They discuss motivations for joining and defecting, and delve into news-making topics: coercing children to become suicide bombers; brides of ISIS and the brutal female morality police; Yazidi and Sunni sex slaves held in massive compounds where fighters use them at will; privilege bestowed on foreign fighters; prisoners kept for the sole purpose of beheading by new inductees. The defectors shared a startling array of photos and videos from personal cell phones and many are included in the digital version of this book. An unexpected subplot unfolded when Dr. Yayla found himself tailed by ISIS, and Dr. Speckhard barely missed two suicide attacks. But the authors are not deterred. As counter-terrorism experts with specialties in research psychology and law enforcement, they see ISIS as more than a terrorist group. ISIS is a brand that falsely sells dignity and purpose, justice and the restoration of glory-to vulnerable recruits-masterfully recruiting some 30,000 members online. It's the biggest influx of foreign fighters to a terrorist haven in history. Using the defectors own words, the authors intend to break the ISIS brand. They have videotaped these interviews to edit them into short clips, memes and tweets for an online counter-offensive. Speckhard and Yayla state that disillusioned ISIS defectors are the most influential tool for countering ISIS propaganda. The persuasive voices of these defectors and the resulting videos will soon invade ISIS chat rooms where their propaganda thrives. With over one thousand active investigations in the U.S. across all 50 states, discrediting ISIS ideology is essential to stopping it.
In any conflict, gathering information by means of spies (human intelligence—HUMINT) is a critical step. From the point of view of national authorities, identifying enemy agents is a matter of national security. Thus, from the enemy agents’ viewpoint, fake passports become invaluable instruments to cross borders and interact with national authorities, while safely hiding one's true identity. In other words, a fake identity passport becomes the tool that can secure freedom of movement to operatives of any intelligence agency. According to Mark Salter, a leading expert on this issue, “crossing the border is considered the most dangerous part of any espionage mission, and fake passports are a way of facilitating that entry.”3 This observation applies to non-state actors as well, such as terrorist networks. Jihadist networks, in fact, give great importance to the retrieval and forgery of passports because they represent vital safe conducts, ensuring the transit of operatives from one state to another.
The literature on the misuse of passports is quite scarce, and the topic remains under-researched, though some academic books and journals, along with articles in international newspapers, have dealt with this security challenge.
This book reveals that most of the world's illegal immigrants are not migrating directly to the US, but to countries in the vast developing world. And when they arrive in countries like India and Malaysia - which are often governed by weak and erratic bureaucracies - they are able to obtain citizenship papers fairly easily. The book introduces "documentary citizenship" to explain how paperwork - often falsely obtained - confers citizenship on illegal immigrants. Once immigrants obtain documents, the book states, it is a relatively simple matter for, say, an Afghan migrant with Pakistani papers to pass himself off as a Pakistani citizen both in Pakistan and abroad. Across the globe, there are literally tens of millions of such illegal immigrants who have assumed the guise of "citizens". Who, then, is really a citizen? And what does citizenship mean for most of the world's peoples?
The misuse of passports is intrinsically connected with international terrorism. Terrorist groups and their operatives demonstrate a propensity to travel in order to meet, organize, train, plan, reconnoiter targets, and deploy for attacks. To travel surreptitiously, terrorist activists and operatives typically make use of improperly obtained, altered, or counterfeit passports and visas. The present study addresses three key issues relating to the terrorist misuse of passports: (a) the role of passport misuse in the operational activities of international terrorist networks; (b) the ways in which terrorist elements acquire seemingly genuine passports; and (c) the various international covenants, agreements, and related action plans intended to constrain terrorists’ ability to move surreptitiously across borders. The analysis describes a terrorism cycle, a complex array of key activities that together serve as enablers for international terrorism. The role of passports and surreptitious travel is examined for each stage of this terrorism cycle.
This thesis provides a composite picture of the Islamic concept of intelligence traces the historical roots of Islamic intelligence activities and explains the (Ideological) relationship between the Islamic religion and the intelligence concept adhered to by modern Arab and Islamist paramilitary groups. Special reference is made to Fatah movement which has been taken up as a case study. The thesis shows that the two main sources of Islam (the Quran and the Sunnah) provided the regulative codes of practice towards intelligence activities. Prophet Muhammad’s intelligence tradition offers the ideal model that the Arab / Islamic paramilitary groups emulate. Referring to the Islamic roots, the research seeks to point out that the hallmarks of the Islamic intelligence concept which emerged from the Quran and Prophet Mohammed’s tradition, became the framework that accommodated ‘Arab / Islamic modern paramilitary intelligence activities’, such as Fatah’s. The thesis uses the modern concept of the intelligence to identify the ancient activities and compares data process within the intelligence cycle. The range of activities is broad: clandestine collection, counterintelligence, analysis and dissemination, and covert action. It also introduces the Arab intelligence tradecraft such as the uses of safe houses, methods of communication, secrecy and concealments...etc. This thesis also aims to correct the perception that Arab intelligence concept developed after the emergence and expansion of the Islamic Empire.
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