Tau of Terrorism

Terror is up and close, all the time .We are in the grip of terrorism mentally and geographically. The incidences of wanton and indiscriminate killings , once taken as the violence of another kind by the thinkers of the day were later so designed by their perpetrators that a better definition was called for .The initial reservations to suffix the word terror with 'ism' a syllable of ideological connotations were blown in the air very soon. The saner world quickly came to terms with it and as a result the coinage 'terrorism' is today a household word, quite distinguishable from the communal or ethnic violence. A grocery seller at the next T-junction or a construction worker wielding his T-square or a youth brandishing his stylish T-shirt, all are at the same page when it comes to their take on terrorism. The Tau (Greek letter T) of terrorism has come a long way.

The operators of terror always execute their plans to a T as goof ups in this business are not pardonable. From the moment of its tee off till date the growth trajectory of terrorism is continuously on rise. Like a winner of the first few rounds it looks more confident. On the other hand, its opponents, our self proclaimed leaders of peace, are grimacingly worried and scared in their overly securitized environs. Terror is moving more freely on the surface than the forces fighting against it, what if it is born and brought up underground. To strike effectively it has to travel faster then the chasers.
The three Ts , the lifelines of terrorism, must always be right for terror to function .Those three Ts necessary for its operability are-Transport, Trade and Transaction.

Transport: The on ground workers (OGWs) of terror are always on the move. This work force includes the messengers, financiers, ideologists, sympathizers and all those who are not on the 'wanted list 'of the enforcement agencies internationally. The main mode of their transport is the air. International traveling by air or otherwise, except via infiltration routes needs valid documents. With 17 years of doting experience and a crazy record behind me, I can say with reasonable confidence that if one such innocuous looking link of the otherwise diabolical plan of the chain of terror is broken by someone somewhere, an impending danger is thwarted elsewhere .The finest cameras and computers alone cannot do this unless there is a finer eye for details and a still finer brain behind to put the picture together.
We need to intercept those 'unusually usual' travelers every now and then to cripple the fast moving devil of terror. Normally, the men on duty end up accosting the 'usually unusual' led by the mechanical and normal intelligence the former have.

Trade: Once there are men ready to go, it requires the stuff i.e. the arms and explosives and that may simply be a knife or a toy bomb to hijack a plane as in 9/11 case or a truck load of RDX as in the case 1993 serial blasts of Mumbai. It implies that the last man in the chain can do nothing unless he has the support on his person or in his personal baggage. This support can have a parallel route as unaccompanied baggage or as cargo. No matter the person is a suicide bomber, the fidayeen, he needs this support to turn into a terrorist.
Men succeed where machines fail. A machine can detect perhaps the smallest possible weapon but not its purpose. At the same time a counter device can be developed scientifically to silence the machine. But the men trained to read the 'unusual script', will never let the culprit pass; they may occasionally cause harassment to innocent travelers. But I think after mankind is smithereened so many times at so many places , such harassment is not a big price. To tell those who have only dealt just with their own luggage, the baggage and cargo also have personalities. I have interacted with those 'cargo persons" and seen my very efficient colleagues talking to them. The dangerous faces among them need to be stopped very often before reaching their destinations, the settings of mass killings. If those pieces of bags or shipments are delayed, the sky will not come down.

TRANSACTIONS: Like traveling of people and transfer of goods, the transaction of money is must to support the actions of terror. The channel may be out rightly illicit or seemingly legitimate, but the fact remains that terror needs huge capital investments and continuous flow of operative funds to sustain the business .Illegitimate trade is business in many of the developing and underdeveloped countries. Many of their now respected business leaders were smugglers and money launderers a few years back. These channels of illegal operations with governmental support, knowingly or unknowingly, open a gateway for terror finances. Sniffing the illicit money can be subject matter of economic intelligence but getting a trail of terror money is a different ball game. You need an efficiency of the level of doing it successfully to be able to catch it. I dont think we have properly trained men anywhere across the globe to detect the terror funds.If you say we have ,then those guys need some bashing . Unwittingly these sleuths keep on stumbling on some scam which is then painstakingly linked to some sister concern of a known terror group. Meanwhile the damage is done. Transaction of money is the first in the operational chain and the last in the investigative process, but not the least, in respect to the support it lends to the mobility of terror.

To break the life line of terrorism,we need to cut it off at every T junction that too with precision.Taking it head-on is foolhardiness.
The Tau can be tamed only with an invisible counter attack.

The world today needs a 'soft invisible cover' to fight against this invisible enemy. There is really no need for our leaders to be so vocal on the subject. The verbalism only helps them to hold their position of power and does nothing except provoking terror outfits to strike with more vengeance. It probably boosts the business of terror by creating monster brands like Osama and Taliban. The invisible soft cover is the only way forward to slowly but effectively tackle the Tau of terrorism and to stop spreading its tentacles further. Declaring an open war only serves the purpose of terrorism.