Why Aren't There More Terrorist Attacks?

As the details of the Times Square car bomb attempt emerge in the wake of Faisal Shahzad’s arrest Monday night, one thing has already been made clear: Terrorism is fairly easy. All you need is a gun or a bomb, and a crowded target. Guns are easy to buy. Bombs are easy to make. Crowded targets—not only in New York, but all over the country—are easy to come by. If you’re willing to die in the aftermath of your attack, you could launch a pretty effective terrorist attack with a few days of planning, maybe less.

But if it’s so easy, why aren’t there more terrorist attacks like the failed car bomb in New York’s Times Square? Or the terrorist shootings in Mumbai? Or the Moscow subway bombings? After the enormous horror and tragedy of 9/11, why have the past eight years been so safe in the U.S.?

There are actually several answers to this question. One, terrorist attacks are harder to pull off than popular imagination—and the movies—lead everyone to believe. Two, there are far fewer terrorists than the political rhetoric of the past eight years leads everyone to believe. And three, random minor terrorist attacks don’t serve Islamic terrorists’ interests right now.

Hard to Pull Off

Terrorism sounds easy, but the actual attack is the easiest part.

Putting together the people, the plot and the materials is hard. It’s hard to sneak terrorists into the U.S. It’s hard to grow your own inside the U.S. It’s hard to operate; the general population, even the Muslim population, is against you.

Movies and television make terrorist plots look easier than they are. It’s hard to hold conspiracies together. It’s easy to make a mistake. Even 9/11, which was planned before the climate of fear that event engendered, just barely succeeded. Today, it’s much harder to pull something like that off without slipping up and getting arrested.

Few Terrorists

But even more important than the difficulty of executing a terrorist attack, there aren’t a lot of terrorists out there. Al-Qaida isn’t a well-organized global organization with movie-plot-villain capabilities; it’s a loose collection of people using the same name. Despite the post-9/11 rhetoric, there isn’t a terrorist cell in every major city. If you think about the major terrorist plots we’ve foiled in the U.S.—the JFK bombers, the Fort Dix plotters—they were mostly amateur terrorist wannabes with no connection to any sort of al-Qaida central command, and mostly no ability to effectively carry out the attacks they planned.

The successful terrorist attacks—the Fort Hood shooter, the guy who flew his plane into the Austin IRS office, the anthrax mailer—were largely nut cases operating alone. Even the unsuccessful shoe bomber, and the equally unsuccessful Christmas Day underwear bomber, had minimal organized help—and that help originated outside the U.S.

Terrorism doesn’t occur without terrorists, and they are far rarer than popular opinion would have it.

Small Attacks Aren’t Enough

Lastly, and perhaps most subtly, there’s not a lot of value in unspectacular terrorism anymore.

If you think about it, terrorism is essentially a PR stunt. The death of innocents and the destruction of property isn’t the goal of terrorism; it’s just the tactic used. And acts of terrorism are intended for two audiences: for the victims, who are supposed to be terrorized as a result, and for the allies and potential allies of the terrorists, who are supposed to give them more funding and generally support their efforts.

An act of terrorism that doesn’t instill terror in the target population is a failure, even if people die. And an act of terrorism that doesn’t impress the terrorists’ allies is not very effective, either.

Fortunately for us and unfortunately for the terrorists, 9/11 upped the stakes. It’s no longer enough to blow up something like the Oklahoma City Federal Building. Terrorists need to blow up airplanes or the Brooklyn Bridge or the Sears Tower or JFK airport—something big to impress the folks back home. Small no-name targets just don’t cut it anymore.

Note that this is very different than terrorism by an occupied population: the IRA in Northern Ireland, Iraqis in Iraq, Palestinians in Israel. Setting aside the actual politics, all of these terrorists believe they are repelling foreign invaders. That’s not the situation here in the U.S.

So, to sum up: If you’re just a loner wannabe who wants to go out with a bang, terrorism is easy. You’re more likely to get caught if you take a long time to plan or involve a bunch of people, but you might succeed. If you’re a representative of al-Qaida trying to make a statement in the U.S., it’s much harder. You just don’t have the people, and you’re probably going to slip up and get caught.

This essay originally appeared on AOL News.

EDITED TO ADD (5/5): A similar sentiment about the economic motivations of terrorists.

Tags: economics of security, essays, risk assessment, terrorism

Posted on May 5, 2010 at 7:09 AM • 121 Comments

Comments

george • May 5, 2010 7:19 AM

Agree 100%. Let’s just turn off the news, our computers, the interwebs; go outside and play.

Bruce Schneier • May 5, 2010 7:22 AM

Remember, if it’s in the news don’t worry about it. The definition of “news” is something that almost never happens.

freedomofeverything • May 5, 2010 7:30 AM

I think we’ve lost track of what a terrorist really is – the Austin IRS guy doesn’t qualify.

‘Terrorist’ is one of those words politicians like to throw at anything they don’t like in order to gain power over it, because people are still afraid of the concept – I don’t even think the word has a proper definition anymore, and has come to mean “Anybody that does anything that makes any person afraid of any thing.”

Robby • May 5, 2010 7:31 AM

Is it possible that the amateur-hour incidents are only tests? Send a lone actor out with some training (but not enough for a high probability of success) to see what the response will be to certain types of attacks? This would be a more sophisticated approach than what you ascribe to the major terrorist groups in the essay – but is it possible?

Tim • May 5, 2010 7:42 AM

“Note that this is very different than terrorism by an occupied population”

very different to ….

Eric • May 5, 2010 7:44 AM

I think the news media is also desperate for “news” topics and tend to exaggerate the danger that these untrained and unskilled morons represent. They later get labled as terrorists to grab headlines.

Rob • May 5, 2010 7:51 AM

I think there’s also currently a lot of ‘noise’ about so-called terror so that any ‘signal’ sent by an attack is more difficult to use. The ‘noise’ ranges from the terrible, the seemingly incessant sequences of deaths from Afghanistan and Iraq, and bombings in Pakistan through to the ludicrous – such as the trivialising of ‘terror’ by arresting a man for taking a photograph of a fish and chip shop or of Christmas lights.

BF Skinner • May 5, 2010 7:58 AM

My answer to this is pretty much I wrote to yesterdays blog.

Did we know there were several bombings this year in N.Ireland? Real IRA work it seems.

I didn’t and I watch for Irish news. Didn’t hear it in ours. Didn’t hear it in the BBC world report. I’ve started to watch Al Jazeera and their coverage is fairly broad.

I learned about it during research for . . . a thing I’m doing.

Morley • May 5, 2010 8:00 AM

For a good example of a larger group attempt, look at the Toronto 18. They had at least 1 or 2 members working for CSIS (Canada’s Intel agency), and the people they were supposed to buy their fertilizer from were also working for the Government.

By the time they had managed to get 18 people involve, too many people knew, too many people reported things, and pretty quickly it went bust.

Good police work, good counter-terrorism, and even better, many of them have gotten psychological help- which is what a lot of these home grown ‘terrorist’ need.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Toronto_terrorism_case

Scott Rubin • May 5, 2010 8:11 AM

I think the simpler answer is that anyone who is smart enough to pull off a successful attack is also smart enough not to be a terrorist. Someone who is crazy enough to be a terrorist is probably not smart enough to pull off a successful attack.

Any nerd who watches Mythbusters knows how to make some extremely dangerous explosive contraptions. Meanwhile, the Times Square bomber was so moronic that he just tossed some bags of non-explosive fertilizer in the truck.

Let’s be thankful that anyone who is smart enough to cause a great deal of damage is smart enough to have no desire to do so.

steve • May 5, 2010 8:20 AM

Very good points.

Does make me laugh, the global jihad we have all been taught to fear, has brought us so few attacks.

Maybe as the ‘terrorists hate our freedom’ all the freedoms taken away have helped calm them. (of course the terrorists don’t hate our freedom, they hate the fact we murder their people, take their resources and build military bases on holy lands)

AppSec • May 5, 2010 8:23 AM

@Bruce:
“Remember, if it’s in the news don’t worry about it. The definition of “news” is something that almost never happens.”

I always thought news was defined as an event which happened recently. Frequency is a matter of opinion. US Presidential elections occur every four years and are pretty news worthy..

Now, I won’t discount that a lot of “news” that is shown or talked about is “spectacular” news in order to boost ratings and garner attention, but does that make it any less news?

B. Real • May 5, 2010 8:25 AM

@Robby: I understand probing your enemy to see how their systems work, but why send out the expendable nutcase with a weapon that is almost guaranteed to fail? While his success probability may be low, it would be just as easy to give him the real thing and a)at least he’ll be taken seriously when caught b)what the heck – he could get lucky and actually pull off a terrorist act and then you get to really see the response profile you’re looking for.

Hugh Mannity • May 5, 2010 8:37 AM

I was told by a gentleman whose job it was to know these things (and who told me in confidence because I didn’t then, and don’t now, have anything close to the security clearance needed even to wish him happy birthday) that at the peak of its operations the IRA had around 200 core members. Of those 200 about 10% were capable of planning an effective terrorist attack, the rest were “just soldiers”.

This was when there was a bomb going off every couple of weeks in London, so I guess that 10% were working pretty hard.

Of course what the IRA did have was hundreds of sympathisers and thousands of people who while they weren’t exactly sympathisers weren’t going to offer any resistance.

Having lived through the IRA’s attacks on London in the 1970s, I’m pretty much immune to being terrorised. The odds of being killed in a terrorist attack were pretty low in London in the ’70s, they’re almost negligible in the US these days.

I figure I’m in more danger from a drunk driver or an over-zealous SWAT team with the wrong address than I am from a terrorist attack.

William Randolph Hearst • May 5, 2010 8:38 AM

@ Eric

“You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.”

freeedomofeverything • May 5, 2010 8:40 AM

@AppSec:
I think he’s just trying to say that the only reason it’s reported in the first place is because it’s so rare. Every explosion in a war zone doesn’t get its own special coverage because it’s out of the ordinary – the time to really be afraid is when they’re so common people stop taking note.

Arjen Kamphuis • May 5, 2010 8:40 AM

“Note that this is very different than terrorism by an occupied population: the IRA in Northern Ireland, Iraqis in Iraq, Palestinians in Israel. Setting aside the actual politics, all of these terrorists believe they are repelling foreign invaders. That’s not the situation here in the U.S.”

Actually several Al Qaida leaders have stated again and again that they want US troops out of the Middle East in general and Saudi Arabia specifically. Saudi being a holy place and all that. The occupation of Palestinian lands is as regularly brought up as a reason. I’m not saying this justifies anything but pretty much all terrorism is some sort of response against an actual or perceived occupation. Actually occupying a list of countries does not help the cast of the West in convincing people of our intentions.

GreenSquirrel • May 5, 2010 8:41 AM

@ Bruce Schneier at May 5, 2010 7:22 AM

“Remember, if it’s in the news don’t worry about it. The definition of “news” is something that almost never happens.”

Well said. Probably the best line I’ve read this year and is sums up an entire module of my Criminology course in two sentences. Bravo.

Sadly, I suspect less than 10% of the population realise this and, as a result, assume that if its in the news its a daily occurance….

The world is mad.

Frank Ch. Eigler • May 5, 2010 8:43 AM

“There are actually several answers to this question.”

You missed some other possible explanations. Like the US inflicting military punishment in foreign lands, a la http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,591827,00.html

“Small no-name targets just don’t cut it anymore.”

Thus proclaims Bruce, but since the context is funding provided to the terrorists due to attack prestige, where exactly did you learn this? Are you party to some sort of funding vs. attack-severity transaction or database?

ali • May 5, 2010 8:48 AM

Shahzad was on the no-fly list.

“Shahzad was spotted at around 3pm on Monday coming out of a shop near his home and was tailed by investigators. He was also placed on a no-fly list.”
…
“Emirates officials were unaware he was on the no-fly list because they did not check a web forum where the latest updates are posted.”

GreenSquirrel • May 5, 2010 8:48 AM

@ Robby at May 5, 2010 7:31 AM

“Is it possible that the amateur-hour incidents are only tests? Send a lone actor out with some training (but not enough for a high probability of success) to see what the response will be to certain types of attacks?”

Well most things are possible.

Its just monumentally unlikely.

The effort and costs required for sending the low-level threat actor out with some form of device is so close to sending a real, full blown attack in, that there is no rational gain to carrying out a test. Unless the terrorist group is both well organised enough to do this and simultaneously crazy enough to think that there will be no after-action investigation.

Tests and dry-runs may well be carried out but they will [should?] be by completely deniable people, without any incriminating information. At least this way you can gauge the targets security without making him overly alert to the attack vector.

As it stands, if this is a test, what would the organisation have achieved? The response is fairly predictable and now new measures will be put in place to close this specific attack vector (rightly or wrongly, no administration wants to suffer the same attack twice). As a result any lessons learned are pointless.

If whatever terrorist group that carried this out were capable of delivering a functioning device, they would have done it first time. That is what gives them the maximum effect.

HJohn • May 5, 2010 9:00 AM

@Note that this is very different than terrorism by an occupied population: the IRA in Northern Ireland, Iraqis in Iraq, Palestinians in Israel. Setting aside the actual politics, all of these terrorists believe they are repelling foreign invaders. That’s not the situation here in the U.S.

I read some commentaries from a former jihadist named Walid Shoebat explaining why he joined jihad and why he left it. He joined it because of everything he was taught growing up–that infidels would drink the blood of his children, maps in schools didn’t have Israel on it and said it was occupied for invaders, and so on. He left it after he was exposed to the so-called “infidels.” When he began studying the “infidels”–including Jews, Christians, Israelis, Americans, etc.–he realized that we were nothing like he was taught about us his whole life.

My point being–leaving the politics out of it as Bruce has asked, and staying off the topic of how true or false their grievances are–we really didn’t understand their mindset. And leaving the justness or wrongness of any of the wars aside, since people rarely changed their minds on it, we definitely were ill-prepared to handle the propaganda war.

I personally find the whole topic both depressing and fascinating. I know that seems an oxymoron, but I find myself often thinking “wow, I didn’t know that, but that is sad.”

Eric • May 5, 2010 9:03 AM

Does anyone remember the campus bombings in the 60’s and 70’s? Whatever ended them? Did it have something to do about the bombers growing up? Graduating? End of Viet Nam and the draft? Or what?

HJohn • May 5, 2010 9:09 AM

@GreenSquirrel: (rightly or wrongly, no administration wants to suffer the same attack twice).

Unfortunately, that’s true. I would imagine a lot factors into that mindset. I think some of it may be necessary to bring public fears back on par with the actually risk which is small.

For example, while I think the shoe screening policy is mostly a waste of time, I’ll confess I do not have information to measure what the public backlash would be if they didn’t do it. I would imagine there would be enough people worried about shoe bombs to cause a problem. So the screening, while of little benefit from a security standpoint, may have eased the overblow fears of some travelers.

Sadly, but i fearfully true, a leader that correctly reacts to some incidents may pay for being right with his political career.

Josh O. • May 5, 2010 9:26 AM

It’s apparently not easy to make a bomb. The last 2 attempts simply fizzled.

shadowfirebird • May 5, 2010 9:29 AM

I think I agree with the “if they were smart enough to plan a good attack they wouldn’t be terrorists” theory.

It seems to me that if you are after making the populace scared of their lives, as opposed to dramatically blowing something up, then you could do that quite well without any guns or explosives.

But they don’t. I’m glad, but I don’t really understand why.

3simplewords • May 5, 2010 9:44 AM

3 simple words for your readers.FALSE FLAG TERROR (sometimes called STATE SPONSORED TERROR)… google and learn…and wake up…sheep

shadowfirebird • May 5, 2010 9:52 AM

@3simplewords:

You’re not going to convince us by telling us we’re sheep because we don’t believe exactly what you believe.

Especially when you assume that we believe something different to you in the first place, without checking?

Actually, this is such a flawed attempt at an argument I’m assuming that you are a troll.

GreenSquirrel • May 5, 2010 9:52 AM

@ HJohn

“a leader that correctly reacts to some incidents may pay for being right with his political career”

Very true.

To an extent as armchair pundits we have the priveledge of being able to say “the chances of them using the same attack twice are so low its a farcical waste of money” but, as you say, what Administration would take that risk?

The (residual) risk and effects of terrorism are different for different people.

A commuter on the London underground is at risk of dying / being maimed by a terrorist attack (IRA, AQ, whoever). The President of the US is not (or at least the risk is so low as to be effectively zero).

However a President who is seen to be “soft on terrorism” (whatever that means) or even God forbid is thought to have allowed terrorists to attack in the same way twice, is at a very real risk of ending his career.

From this perspective, Governmental actions make a bit more sense.

Doesn’t make them right though!

Daniel • May 5, 2010 9:52 AM

I would phrase Bruce’s original question slightly differently. The better question is why aren’t there more competent terror attacks.

Chris • May 5, 2010 9:56 AM

Some of the targets don’t have the weight they used to. The Sears Tower isn’t even the Sears Tower anymore, it’s the Willis Tower which just increases the “The terrorists attacked what? shrug” factor. In addition to having to attack something that’s significant, they have to attack something that’s in the popular consciousness to be effective.

Stupid corporate renaming of buildings…

shadowfirebird • May 5, 2010 10:02 AM

@Chris

Actually, all they have to do is get on the news, surely?

Maybe that’s why these attempts fail. Because it’s not entirely important that they succeed; just that they look as if they might.

It’s a bizarre thought. The terrorists are only interested in looking as if they are dangerous, and the authorities are only interested in looking as if they were stopping them?

freedomofeverything • May 5, 2010 10:03 AM

@shadowfirebird:
Not sure troll is the right term. Perhaps overly paranoid.

@3simplewords:
Conspiracies such as this are really unlikely. Consider that information leakage is pretty common and also that deniable assets have no real reason to keep quiet about who sent them.

There are 3 reasons someone would engage in this kind of activity: ideology (not necessarily religious), financial, or coercion. The government doesn’t need to fake ideological terrorism, there’s enough of that anyway. Financial motives would be too easy to spot, and coercion would usually involve the threat of harm to a loved one, all of which are very hard to keep secret.

HJohn • May 5, 2010 10:08 AM

@GreenSquirrel at May 5, 2010 9:52 AM

That’s part of why I cut those in charge a bit more slack than some people do. In regards to some of the waste that is airport screening, it is easy for us to see how low the risk is at the micro level.

The math is much different for the person in charge nation wide. The TSA screens over 2 million passengers a day. To put this in perspective, that is 1 billion screenings every 16 months. Put another way, the number of screenings matches the US population every 5 months. 1 in a million, or 1 in 100 million calculates to be a much different risk over time for the person who will be held responsible if there is an incident anywhere at any time.

In a more rational society that values freedom, we’d understand that occassional attempts are to be expected, but we all know that isn’t the reality of the situation.

A president or the head of TSA, doesn’t matter his/her political party, may correctly explain the situation. However, their political opponent(s) will run adds of weeping relatives juxtaposed with clips of them saying that the terrorist threat is small.

CGomez • May 5, 2010 10:17 AM

I disagree with the statement that small attacks aren’t worth it. I am astounded by the stupidity (or perhaps nonexistence) of Al-Qaeda when it simply didn’t follow up 9/11 with small attacks.

Too many Americans conceded that NY was a target and decided they were safe in other places. Too many Americans decided they were safe working in nondescript offices rather than famous ones like the WTC.

The DC Snipers terrorized a region with nothing more than a gun and a van. Al-Qaeda should have been doing DC sniper x 100.

They must be stupid, dead, or don’t exist.

AppSec • May 5, 2010 10:24 AM

@freeedomofeverything

I understood what he meant, I just don’t necessarily agree with it as it is a little bit off the mark and leads to a false sense of (I really don’t want to use this word) “security”.

Maybe it is just a feeling. But there is just something that doesn’t fit with that argument. It feels like the underlying tone is because the event is rare we shouldn’t worry about it. So we really shouldn’t worry about those businesses that take commit fraud because it is rare? There’s really no reason to worry about Identity Theft becasue it’s on the news, so it’s rare? So, does that mean that I shouldn’t worry about my account?

I know that’s not what he’s saying, but that’s how it comes across… To me… But then again, I maybe reading way too much into it 🙂

aikimark • May 5, 2010 10:27 AM

The rules are being changed for airlines. They used to have a 24-hour window to check the no-fly list. That is being changed to a 2-hour window.

The current 24-hour interval is the reason that Faisal Shahzad was able to board the plane.

BF Skinner • May 5, 2010 10:30 AM

@Scott Rubin “anyone who is smart enough to pull off a successful attack is also smart enough not to be a terrorist”
Never pays to underestimate your enemies. This is part of a US meme, a stereotype…the ‘terrorist’ is a poor illiterate farmer or cave dweller. Facts dispute this. Bin Laden is said to have studied economics and public admin and has a degree as a civil engineer, Kaczynski was a math Phd, studies seem to indicate that the people committing attacks tend to have higher education and economic classes. Charles Russell and Bowman Miller “Perspectives on errorism” found the same thing with the Japanese Red Army, Germany’s Baader-Meinhof Gang, and Italy’s Red Brigades. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/02_23/b3786027.htm

I wonder why this particular meme is still so current. I suspect generic Western chauvinism. How often have the wogs kicks our butts? Just. . . a lot. But that’s an off the cuff evaluation.

Policy, Politics and Journalism
This is a follow up from yesterday’s blog where
@CGomez said,
“both parties and most politicians care about nothing more than the acquisition and maintenance of power”
“Reporters are useful idiots because they have no expertise in anything but reporting, and they are taught in school that everyone has a valid opinion and to be “neutral”.

These touch valid points. What motivates a Fox News or CNN? Thier existence. To exist they must sell ad time and for that ad time to be worth something they’ve got to grab and hold attention. We used to call our local news Blood Witness news for their habit of filming the blood on the street of the accidents. What holds our attention, fear, disgust, anger.
But these are all emotions and they change over time.

Same within politics. Politics is about acquiring and using power. This is the tension between purity and practicallity. You can be as philosophical pure as you want to be but if you can’t get elected you can’t do anything about (fill in with any issue that matters to you). “You gotta get elected to be effective.”
We saw the last administration was very effective in this. But they still had to listen to people en masse. There was a scene during Katrina where the VP was told he had to go down to New Orleans. Cheany is a very pragmatic guy “why me. I’m not a huggy feely guy. we’ve got teams in place.” True but he failed to calculate the political angle. The story goes that POTUS was most annoyed at him. A political example of security theater maybe.

Within both these groups there are charlatans, grifters, demagogues. hacks and poltroons sure. But I’ve met enough of both classes to realize that they aren’t the norm. They are however constrained to the realities of their working enviornment (cf New World Communs. of Tampa, Inc. v. Akre, 866 So. 2d 1231(2003)).

Changing the coverage might help. Copycats and wannabes only copy what they think is cool, sleek, dangerous. Back in the 80s there was a story I think was called A Very Proper Charlie. Where the news agencies were convinced to report every screwup, every fault, and make terrorists look like bumbling morons. As the story went the first thing it affected was the terrorists funding. Dunno if it would work but it’s worth a try.

BF Skinner • May 5, 2010 10:35 AM

@3simplewords: “sheep”
Its sheeple isn’t it? Alex Jones & Co. will be perturbed with you if you don’t use proper terminology.

freedomofeverything • May 5, 2010 10:36 AM

@AppSec:
It’s a fair point, and you’ve struck on that bit of human nature that makes all this possible.

People fear a lack of control more than anything else, and the random nature of a terrorist attack strums that string in just the right way – most other forms of unintentional death can be controlled (even if just the illusion of control) by changing your circumstances: Avoid dying in a plane crash by not flying, avoid dying in a mugging by staying in at night, avoid being the target of a hitman by not pissing off the mob (;]). But since terrorists (and identity thieves) attack random people without prejudice, our fear of that attack grows disproportionately to how likely we actually are to be a victim of it since we have no control over it.

Identity theft is another suitably vague term – what it really means is that somebody is pretending to be someone else, and the purpose doesn’t matter. A kid using someone else’s driver’s license to get into a bar is technically committing identity theft even though the victim never even knew, just the same as that guy who completely drained your bank account.

It’s a random crime that you are very unlikely to ever be the victim of – but the lack of control makes you worry.

B. Real • May 5, 2010 10:57 AM

Any day now it will become common knowledge that this alleged “terror attack” was simply a ploy by the oil industry to distract us from the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

(Yes, I am kidding — aren’t I??)

Brian • May 5, 2010 10:58 AM

This article seems directly contradictory to your previous statements about “security theatre”. You are describing Movie style plots, and saying they are the only effective ones. Yet you say we shouldn’t protect against them? And you say that its hard to get terrorists into the country, yet also say that stopping many people at the airport is a waste of money.

If they have to divert their tactics, they have to divert them to less effective tactics, which prevents them from doing the movie style plots, and is therefor ineffective as a terrorist action. So, basically, prevent movie style plots without preventing movie style plots?

I think I agree with your prior statements about movie style plots, and that we should focus on intelligence then on movie style plots…