Threat assessment

FBI and DHS Assessment Outlined Threat of Lone Offenders Targeting Las Vegas

More than nine months before Stephen Paddock opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel, killing at least 59 people, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security issued a “Joint Special Event Threat Assessment” warning of the potential threat of lone offenders targeting mass gatherings, like music venues in Las Vegas.

A main concern, according to the unclassified, for-official-use-only document obtained by Foreign Policy, was that unaffiliated lone offenders could take advantage of New Year’s Eve celebrations in the Las Vegas Strip to stage an attack that would be hard to prevent.

Threat assessment

UK breaks with U.S. on Muslim Brotherhood

The United Kingdom broke from the largely complacent U.S. position on radical Islamists in a startling indictment of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB).

"Aspects of the Muslim Brotherhood's ideology and activities … run counter to British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, equality and the mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs," Prime Minister David Cameron said in a statement. Cameron further states that "association with, or influence by the Muslim Brotherhood should be considered as a possible indicator of extremism."

Threat assessment

Western Intelligence A Step Behind ISIS, According To Expert

Derek Harvey, a former top intelligence agent and advisor in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, has said that the Western intelligence communities have not fully grasped the threat ISIS poses to the West, failed to understand the organisation’s mode of operation, and as a result have been “playing catch up” in attempts to disrupt the threat posed by ISIS.

The CIA and other intelligence services, he says, wrongly concluded that Syria and Iraq were the main focus of ISIS, with attacks in the West being isolated events not connected with the main organisation. The coordinated attacks in Paris have laid bare the faults in this assumption.

ISIS behaves differently than its predecessor, Al Qaeda, he said. The latter focuses on large, high profile attacks, while ISIS prefers small, numerous attacks whose purpose is to cause fear, chaos, and mayhem in Western society.