Word: yorking
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...will be days, possibly weeks, before we know all the details of how the attempted Riverdale bombing was foiled, but counterterrorism experts say it's already clear where the plotters made their first mistake: they picked targets in New York City. Since the devastating attacks on Sept. 11, the city has built up formidable intelligence resources that are designed to anticipate, detect and eliminate terrorism threats. "No city is better prepared for this kind of attack than New York," says Fred Burton, a counterterrorism expert at Stratfor, a global-intelligence firm. "These guys picked the wrong town to mess with...
...Between the NYPD's counterterrorism bureau, the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force and a U.S. Attorney's office vastly experienced in national-security issues, "you have a perfect storm of anti-terror efforts in New York, and [the plotters] ran straight into it," Burton says. The city, along with Los Angeles, "has resources comparable to many countries," says James Carafano, a terrorism analyst at the Heritage Foundation. (See pictures of a jihadist's journey...
...enforcement officials have not said how exactly they came to know of the plot or how the FBI informant came into contact with the plotters. But experts say New York authorities have developed an extensive network of community contacts to keep tabs on suspicious behavior. Burton surmises that authorities had a tip-off that the mosque used by chief plotter James Cromitie "was conducive to the radicalization process" and planted an informant among the congregation - which ultimately led the authorities to Cromitie...
...that point, experts say, officials in most U.S. cities would have arrested Cromitie and his fellow conspirators. But because of New York's superior resources, authorities were able to take more time - months, as it turns out - using intensive surveillance to map out the full details of the plot and to see if the plotters had connections to other domestic or international groups. "In the U.S. we tend to roll up the conspirators quickly, but in the U.K. they allow the conspiracies to run a long way, so they can scoop up as much more intelligence," says Bill Rosenau...
...good as the New York counterterrorism infrastructure is, it may have been helped by luck. It's impossible to know how far Cromitie might have gone if he had not reached out to the FBI informant. "Terrorist plots are most vulnerable when the terrorists have to go outside their group for help," says Burton. Lacking the "terrorism tradecraft" to build explosives themselves, the plotters had no choice but to seek help, and "that greatly increased the chances they would be caught," he adds...