The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
FBI shifts strategy amid new threat
Agents focus on attacks inspired by Islamic State.
Matt Apuzzo and Michael S. Schmidt WASHINGTON — In the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, Justice Department officials, concerned that another attack was imminent, swiftly arrested many people, some of whom were only remotely suspected of having ties to terrorism.
Many suspicions proved unfounded. Some cases collapsed. And the frenzied response soon gave way to a more patient approach that encouraged FBI agents to watch suspects as long as possible before making arrests so they could gain valuable intelligence about al-Qaida’s networks.
Now, confronted with efforts by the Islamic State to inspire Americans to commit violence, the authorities have changed their strategy again.
In recent months, the FBI has apprehended people suspected of being Islamic State sympathizers soon after they came onto the government’s radar. The FBI has arrested and charged at least 25 people in the past three months with having ties to the Islamic State or other terrorist groups, compared with 20 people arrested over the previous year, according to court records.
U.S. counterterrorism officials are so concerned about the threat from the Islamic State that in June the FBI had so many people under surveillance in terrorism-related investigations that supervisors reassigned criminal squads to monitor terrorism suspects, according to FBI officials.
“It’s like in old cartoons where you would have a stick of dynamite and a long fuse, except now the fuse is much shorter — the flash to bang is much faster,” John P. Carlin, the assistant attorney general for national security, said in an interview.
But critics say the return to a faster-moving approach raises the possibility that, in the rush to make arrests, the government is jeopardizing criminal cases and missing opportunities to gather intelligence. Thomas A. Durkin, a Chicago defense lawyer who has represented clients accused of supporting al-Qaida and the Islamic State, said the new cases are hurried and not as strong.
“Everything is: ‘Not on my watch,’” Durkin said. “‘Do you want to be responsible letting that kid go home? Not me.’”
Officials from the Justice Department and the FBI defend the practice, saying their chief mission is to prevent violence. They acknowledge that the Islamic State — a radical Sunni terrorist organization operating chiefly out of Syria and Iraq — has shown no ability to stage significant attacks inside the United States.
But they say sympathizers have repeatedly expressed a willingness to undertake small-scale attacks, such as stabbings and shootings that require little planning. Because their networks are far less complex than the ones used by al-Qaida, officials do not believe they are missing out on important intelligence.
“Sometimes people say, ‘So why are you disrupting these people?’” James B. Comey, the FBI director, said in a briefing with reporters. “Well, first, we’re disrupting because we try to disrupt plots, but also we face people who are highly unpredictable.”
One senior law enforcement official said that “if moving quickly stops an attack but hurts our pros- ecutions, then that’s the price you have to pay to prevent violence.” The official spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Some FBI investigators privately disagree with the intense focus, which draws resources away from other investigations and sometimes has led to frustration inside the bureau and the Justice Department.
After years of watching for large-scale plots, investigators are now trying to identify and prevent shootings and stabbings — violence on a scale that is common in major U.S. cities but has never been a priority for the FBI. Preventing Islamic State-inspired violence is a priority, and current and former investigators say they feel tremendous pressure to succeed.
“We don’t expect to eradicate crime, but we’ve made a political promise that we’re going to stop every act of terrorism,” Durkin said. “It’s ridiculous.”
The recent episode in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in which a troubled Kuwaiti-born man fatally shot five people at military sites, shows the difficulty in preventing smallscale attacks. Investigators have found no evidence that the gunman, Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, was in contact with the Islamic State, but they say they believe he watched terrorist videos on the Internet, most likely making him the kind of self-radicalized killer the FBI is trying to stop.
An event this spring in Boston illustrates how the authorities now react faster to potential violence, Comey said.
In May, counterterrorism investigators began surveillance of Usaamah Abdullah Rahim, 26, who had been in touch with the Islamic State online. The authorities said they believed that while he was planning to stage an attack, he was not an imminent threat. But, Comey said Rahim “woke up on the morning of June the 2nd and said, ‘You know what, I think today is the day,’ and just went to kill people.”
Specifically, FBI agents, who were tapping Rahim’s phone, heard him say on June 2 that he planned to behead a police officer. When they tried to apprehend him, he pulled out a knife and the agents fatally shot him.
In response to calls on Twitter by the Islamic State for Americans to stage attacks on the Fourth of July, FBI officials in Washington told agents across the country in the weeks leading up to the holiday to arrest suspects under surveillance if they believed they had enough evidence to bring charges. Whatever additional intelligence they could gain from watching these people was not worth the risk, officials said.
“Headquarters was saying, ‘You can’t take the chance that these guys will quickly do something crazy,’” one senior law enforcement official said.
Justice Department and FBI officials acknowledge that there is sometimes a price to pay for speedy arrests. One of the highestprofile examples came immediately after Sept. 11, when FBI agents arrested Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri. The authorities said he was an al-Qaida sleeper agent who was researching poisonous gases and plotting a cyberattack while living in the United States. U.S. intelligence officials said an al-Qaida financier paid for his trip the United States.
He was quickly arrested but charged with the far less serious crime of credit card fraud. After a yearslong court fight over whether al-Marri could be held as an enemy combatant, he pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy and was sentenced to eight years in prison. He was released this year and returned to Qatar.
In response to cases like that, the FBI changed its approach.
Arthur Cummings, who held several senior positions in counterterrorism and national security at the FBI, urged agents not to make arrests until they had gleaned every bit of intelligence. Cummings’ strategy helped identify alQaida leaders worldwide and disrupted attacks, including a 2009 plot to bomb New York’s subways, but the approach always came with an important caveat: If agents believed a threat was imminent and uncontrollable, they should move quickly.