Belgian investigators have taken a beating since failing to disrupt the Brussels bombings last week. They took more than four months to locate Salah Abdeslam in the very neighborhood he grew up in. Belgian investigators also missed the network’s talented bomb maker, Najim Laachraoui, who escaped arrest on Friday only to resurface the following Tuesday…
Category: Tactics
Examining Terrorist Tactics: Soft Targets of Terror
ISIS has “upgraded”the Al Qaeda playbook and determined that several teams of shooters and bombers or suicide bombers working together and attacking multiple SOFT targets simultaneously is much more effective than one big operation against a hard target. Tactically, attacking multiple targets in unison let’s the terrorist take advantage of the mass confusion and the…
Why Pixelated Camo Patterns Work
Over the last two decades or so, armed forces around the world have abandoned their camouflage patterns in favor of a more pixelated, machine-engineered camo, similar to the blocky graphics in the popular online game “Minecraft.” And while it may seem counterintuitive, the digital-print look of the pixelated camos is actually notably more effective than earlier…
Examining Terrorist Tactics: Jihad by Migration = Overloading the Immigration System
By Hammerhead Since the great “European Jihad by Migration” began,I started studying the defining characteristics of our enemy. And although some may dismiss these findings, I believe these same types of tactics will and are being used here in the United States. These terrorist know how to use both European and American Immigration and Criminal…
Examining Terrorist Tactics: The Changing Logic Behind Suicide Bombings
(Note from Hammerhead: It was just announced that yet another ISIS suicide bomber killed 29 people in a Football Stadium in Baghdad). What was once purely a strategic action has become a tactical move meant to help hold territory. In October 2015, two suicide bombers killed more than 100 people outside a railway station in the Turkish capital…
Military Defense News: Increase, Don’t Decrease Marine Lethality
On February 2, the Senate Armed Services Committee heard conflicting testimonyfrom the Army and Marines about integrating women into the infantry. The Marine Corps had opposed the change, drawing the ire of Navy Secretary Ray Mabus. So he took gender integration a giant step farther, ordering the Marines toabolish their separate male and female boot…
This Forgotten 1950s Flying Trick Could Be the Secret of Future Drone Warfare
The “bucket drop”, invented by a missionary trying to airdrop gifts to natives in Ecuador, would let warplanes release a swarm of drones and lasso them back. The warplane of the future is a drone mothership, able to dispatch swarms of small air-launched UAVs for close-up reconnaissance, to act as jammers or decoys, or…
Practical Skill-Sets: Brussels Attack Highlights Need For Civilian Trauma Training
Muslim terrorists attacked the Belgian capital of Brussels today in a series of attacks that seem to have used IEDs and may have used firearms as well. The attacks took place four days after the primary suspect in the November terrorist attacks in Paris, France was arrested in the city. News media are reporting at…
The Three Faces of Russian Spetsnaz in Syria
As the Russian drawdown from Syria continues, more information continues to emerge about the forces Moscow had committed to shoring up the Assad regime. One telling aspect is how involved Russia’s Spetsnaz special forces were in the deployment. They were involved in two of their three core missions — reconnaissance and special security missions —…
The Long History of “Little Green Men” Tactics and How They Were Defeated
In both Crimea and the subsequent fighting in the Donbas region of Ukraine, Russia’s signature tactic has been the use of so-called “Green Men,” soldiers without identifying insignia whose identity as Russian soldiers the Kremlin denied. Ukraine, Georgia, and even NATO members like Estonia now fear that they could be the next target for Russia’s…