Having been vaguely aware of the incidents that had brought a large proportion of the Metropolitan DC area to a virtual standstill whilst serving with the UN mission in Kosovo, it came as something of a shock to be informed that the FBI were trying to contact me sometime later, with a view to my assistance on the matter. Having received confirmation that I was indeed being asked to get in touch I was about to be given the best opportunity of my life to witness the deadly efficiency of my own chosen trade on a civilian community.
Having established that I was being asked to act as an expert witness for the prosecution team and having received official clearance from the MOD, I was flown to Dulles airport and collected by a senior detective working as part of the Task Force of male and female law enforcement and Federal officers. The Task Force had been established to pursue the conviction of the two men who had killed without mercy around the DC area.
For many years the prospect of two men forcing a much larger force to become insular and defensive has been know, and history is littered with examples of this type of warfare and yet once again it all seems to have come as a big surprise. Terrorist organisations have long known of the vulnerability of large technically superior forces to “under-belly” attacks against its support and echelon areas, and of quick hit and run type attacks against forces already hamstrung by rules of engagement and operational restrictions that the terrorist can use to assist their own success rates.
The Provisional IRA had limited military success with their sniping attacks against the police and military units in the Ulster regions, but on the media and propaganda front their seemingly unstoppable attacks against the British Army reaped rich reward.
The PIRA have proved to be very imaginative over the years and have succeeded in designing and producing some novel methods of attack and their decision to include a mobile shooting platform within their sniper campaign was yet another indication of the way small terrorist units maximise their hitting power.
With a small but grainy picture of the IRA vehicle used to carry and fire the sniper weapon against Crown Forces available in a published book on the troubles in Northern Ireland, it is conceivable that whoever planned the terrorist campaign deployed against the American public, “borrowed” the idea when deciding to mount mobile sniper attacks.
There is a mass of planning and funding issues that will go unpublished for security reasons, and this is justifiably so, as to reveal operationally successful tactics in any area of warfare is fundamentally unsound, but the basic format of the Washington DC Snipers, as the general media have labelled them, is well known and proven and so to use this article to highlight a concern that may have been overlooked would seem just.
As a result of the court case and my part in it, I am aware of various “critics” on sniper related websites, who believe I did the community an injustice in not denouncing the two defendants of their “sniper” status, but I have to disagree.
The two men were in no way trained or capable of the operational standards that could have been expected of either military or police snipers, but they did use sniper tactics, all be it of reduced effectiveness of what could have been achieved, and so were quite rightly labelled. It is the tactic and not the course that makes the sniper; the course merely expands an operational option and increases its overall effectiveness by incorporating it within an all arms battle. To operate as a pair, shooting and killing before withdrawing; only to return and do it again IS sniping.
The fact that two men poorly prepared and with limited skill, can keep the combined police and federal resources of the world's only super-power defensively on the back foot for such a long time is testament to the almost unstoppable quality of the sniper tactic. The USA is by no means alone in its completely unprepared state for dealing with this threat, and it would be a very lucky world that does not see this tactic surface over and over again until dedicated, experienced counter-sniper units are established.
Many countries voice a counter-sniper option, but the majority harbour a thought that counter sniper means deploying snipers or other heavily armed options to deter or stop the sniper. This is indeed an effective method of limiting the extent to which a sniper attack can be effective, but it is only a small part of the overall defensive force that must be in place, and practiced to produce a truly effective counter-sniper response.
It was this lack of overall in depth defence that allowed these two men to remain at large for so long, and that were only captured as a result of an alert member of the general public, although it must be stated that the law enforcement task force were without doubt closing in.
The USA is a vast land mass and is policed by some of the world's most experienced officers that are backed up by several world renowned Federal Agencies. Their skill, knowledge and equipment far outstrip that of other nations, but they are vulnerable to one thing that affects all countries, pride and professional jealousy. This human failing was identified and maximised by the pair during the follow up procedures of their first attacks and enabled them to turn it against the defending forces by encompassing it in subsequent attacks.
The pair was quickly able to identify jurisdiction issues between police forces at several crime scenes and realised that by sighting their attacks on jurisdictional boundaries, they increased their chances of evidence failing to be collated properly and hence increased their terror affect expectancy. This tactic had limited effect but could well be argued as to having resulted in the pair remaining at large much longer than they would have, had a countrywide counter sniper desk already been in existence.
The establishment of a Federal or central counter-sniper department, be it an individual unit or an integral part of a counter terrorist unit, is fundamental in reducing the chances of a sniper attack succeeding and should be linked to all crime/terrorist intelligence departments for “long-gun” incidents. The input of all related incidents to a single central desk, manned by experienced military and police sniper trained personnel, would go a long way to reducing the very real threat posed by the single/team attack with a single or multiple shot weapon system. We already have various specialised law and military intelligence units trained and experienced in recognising specific threats and sniping is an area that needs to be addressed. A simple look around at vital areas of a country's military and industrial asset will show just how vulnerable any country is to a well planned sniper campaign.
Most people imagine a sniper threat as a man or woman firing a single bullet of 308/7.62 calibre at a human target, but that is only one option. Weapons now come in all size calibres and with many very effective natures of ammunition, that correctly placed will cause damage far out of proportion to its size, and all you need train a firer to do is aim and pull the trigger. The attacks in the USA were criminal in nature, but terrorist in design and gave the world an early warning of what might be, and nations would be foolish it ignore it.
In a clearly detailed and very well constructed campaign, the men attacked the general public in order to dictate actions to the Government. They set about a plan to limit public movement and hence drop localised economy profit. This in turn applies pressure on local and then higher authority, to remove this threat, as business losses dictate an angry demand by corporate entities for the law enforcement departments to protect and hence return profit. By scaring or terrorising the general public into not driving their cars, because getting fuel could mean getting shot, you cost the fuel industry vast amounts of money, and to compound that effect by killing an innocent bus driver you ensure that even public transport starts to grind to a halt.
If you then attack local outlet and major outlet stores you in effect confine the general public to home with all the subsequent loss of earnings to the economy. If this seems all a bit far fetched, just ask anyone living in the DC area during these attacks how they felt and you will get the point.
As the attacks continue unchecked, the pressure mounts on both Government and law enforcement to act and protect against a threat they are ill equipped to stop. Add inter-boundary rivalries and everybody putting pressure on each other to attain results, and you have the makings of a disaster. Imagine this on a country-wide level, driven by a political instead of a criminal element and the problem becomes vast.
The Police forces of the DC area were not at fault, and neither was the Government, as this threat has been ignored by just about everyone. The fact is that two men identified and used a threat that they realised gave them the upper hand against a vastly better equipped and staffed force. If it happens again and a country is not prepared, then someone is at fault, because the lessons of this method of attack have been ignored, underestimated or have fallen victim to the balance of budget against probability of attack.
These men have been tried and will face further trial on charges of terrorism, and it is without doubt that they did indeed terrorise the general public with a campaign designed to horrify and intimidate with its merciless and apparently random killing. The killing could in fact be argued as being extremely well planned in that it left no sector of the public untouched encompassing colour, race, gender and age. This wide spread list of victims meant that the terror factor restricted movement of the entire community, and if you add attacks on as diverse a number of professions, you can see the pattern forming.
All sniper attacks will leave a pattern that to the experienced will become obvious. With this information or indication, an experienced sniper will reverse the role in his head and draw a conclusion in order to select a point in the enemies plan to interact with him and remove the threat.
Whilst it all sounds very easy, there is obviously a great many factors that will affect the counter snipers decision process and the skill and knowledge to do these come from years of training and experience. To effectively counter this very easy to deploy, and yet very hard to stop threat, the world has to take action now and stop leaving counter sniping to singular departments. It has to be controlled at the highest level and follow a nationwide curriculum to stand any chance of limiting or stopping a clear threat to national assets and the general public.
