Earlier this week DHS updated the National Terrorism
Advisory Systems (NTAS)
bulletin. This has been a semi-annual activity since
2015. It has become a relatively unimportant news item because there has
been little or no change in the wording of each successive bulletin; last May
it did not even rate a full
blog post here.
There is little change in this iteration, but there is a
small change that may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:
“Some terrorist groups overseas are
using battlefield experiences to pursue new technologies and tactics, such
as unmanned aerial systems and chemical agents [emphasis added] that
could be used outside the conflict zones. Additionally, terrorists continue to
target commercial aviation and air cargo, including with concealed explosives.”
There have been a number of news articles over the last six
months or so about the Isis use of UAS and chemical agents on the battlefield.
It is not a great stretch to assume that such tools could be used in terrorist
attacks. I would like to think, however, that DHS would not mention these
attack options in this venue unless there were specific intelligence that Isis
was attempting to move these technologies off the conventional battlefield and into
the terrorist playbook. That may just be wishful thinking on my part.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment