Manhunting from the Sea
Manhunting…from the Sea (Full PDF Article)
Although once considered little more than a nuisance and a force protection issue for overseas troops, terrorism will remain the top priority of our national security strategy for the foreseeable future. Regardless of the form in which a terrorist threat manifest itself, be it a state-sponsored global group, decentralized extremist cells, or just rogue individuals, Americans can no longer ignore stateless actors who have the ability to inflict serious harm on our citizens and economy. As the lethality and effectiveness of individual terrorist attacks grows, the ability to take down individual leaders or their networks becomes an increasingly urgent mission set for the military. Manhunting — finding and neutralizing high value individual targets — is now an integral part of irregular warfare operations supporting the Global War on Terrorism. These types of precision terrorist targeting operations, combined with sound counterinsurgency techniques, have proven effective in ongoing campaigns against the FARC in Colombia, Islamic insurgents in the Philippines, and Al Qaeda in Iraq.
Terrorists seek refuge in terrain that allows them to stay undercover from conventional targeting methods. These under-governed areas may include rugged mountainous, jungle, and coastal environments, or urban terrain where they can hide among the population. Over half of the terrorist safe havens listed in the 2008 State Department Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism Country Reports are in coastal countries or littoral areas. The Sinjar Records, a declassified database of Al-Qa'ida documents captured by coalition forces in October 2007 in Iraq provide another data set indicating terrorist proximity to the sea. All of the 328 individuals in those records who traveled to Iraq to fight against coalition forces or engage in suicide bombing missions originated from just seven different Middle East countries with coastlines of various lengths. Given the nomadic nature of terrorists and the proximity of many potential targets to the sea, distributed maritime forces are a natural player in manhunting efforts…
