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| Kenyan Soldiers preparing to assault the terrorist in a Kenyan mall. Note that they are armed with SCAR assault rifles with EO Tech optics. No doubt courtesy of a US Army Special Forces A-Team that I've read is operating in country. Heck, they probably have advisers on the scene providing advise on how best to assault the bad guys. |
We're seeing it in Kenya.
Sooner or later we're going to see a major incident here in the US. What should be troubling isn't the fact that we're setting ourselves up for another pressure cooker bomber, or even a car bomber.
What should keep the bubbas up in the FBI HRT Ready Room is the fact that for the second time we're seeing terrorist use rudimentary squad tactics in an assault against civilians.
What does this mean for the US?
In my opinion, we'll see this but on steroids. In Kenya they assaulted the mall with real assault weapons. They reportedly moved in teams and threw grenades into the crowds. Additionally they picked their time well. A childrens day at the mall. A mall frequented by foreigners. In particular Brits and Canadians.
We're past car bombs, pressure cooker bombs or beltway snipers. We're headed toward real deal, Iraq war type combat in a public event near you.
The only real question is how many people they're going to send to do the deed. I've always thought in terms of ten to maybe twenty people. But here's a what if for ya. What if they aim higher. What if they launch a platoon sized attack with upwards of around 40 to 60 people? If they've trained hard, have experience in Afghanistan or Iraq or Syria. If they're well equipped then even the combined might of FBI Hostage Rescue Team and US Marshals Special Operations Group would be hard pressed to beat them. Such an incident would probably require SOCOM to support the response with the deployment of Delta and SEAL Team 6 along with someone to provide perimeter security.
Even worse for us all is if this does come to pass this will shock the nation in a way that even 9/11 didn't. Such an attack would send us down the path of being a velvet gloved police state. I hope those boys in the NSA are doing more than monitoring what porn sites I visit.
I avoid US malls at all costs, those things are huge death traps. Haven't been inside one in years. With holidays just around the corner, too easy for bad guys like terrorists or just another crazy copy cat mass killer to go in there and take out a bunch of civilians. The reason I think US officials haven't said anything about this is they don't want to spook shoppers. When you think about it, attacking a mall is so much easier than going after an airplane or the inside of a stadium plus it would really hit the economy hard if timed before Black Friday or early Xmas. With guns being so easy to buy in the USA, it is just a matter of time when this happens, not if.....
ReplyDeleterifles are a dime a dozen. that isn't the concern. what is a concern to me is the training, and aggressiveness of the assaulters. i like to think i'm crusty but if i'm being honest, if i'm in wally world and suddenly you have a platoon of bad guys coming in from all directions with AT-4's, Carl Gustav's grenades and SCARS/M4's it would be over. i might have time to ask God to let me see him, but not much else. a really aggressive, highly motivated and well trained team of guys can do damage. i'm not talking SEALs or Rangers or MARSOC or SF...i'm talking about conventional Marines or Light Infantry bubbas (10th Mtn, 82nd etc...).
Deletequite honestly the best that we could hope for is that the first responders have enough information to ATTEMPT to contain the situation instead of save the people inside. if they complete their sweep through whatever target they're hitting and then disperse to do it somewhere else then you're seeing the USA in total panic and a nationwide boston after the boston marathon bombing.
oh and i hear ya. i don't do malls. i don't do professional sports arenas. i don't do large public gatherings. for some reason women are drawn to them like flames to a moth but they're just not worth the potential for trouble...and now major trouble.
DeleteRemember a couple of months back when I questioned what you think the chance a former marine platoon would have of assaulting and destroying a hard target like a police station?
ReplyDeleteI think we are seeing an evolution of that concept.
Expect the hostages to have been seriously brutalised. Reading accounts of Chechen attacks in Russia is harrowing.
Six ten man teams hitting major transport links in conjunction with car bombs and then falling back towards a major shopping centre for a last stand, your looking at a death toll of thousands easily, I've worked in office buildings that housed 2000+ workers, one entrance, easy to contain and kill the entire populace.
If they just went on a rampage, it could be days before forces could be marshalled to chase down 6 highly agressive well armed mobile kill teams.
Your worried LEOs might contain the situation, I'm worried terrorists will contest that plan.
****ing terrifying.
you want to read about animalistic behavior? read about what those bastards did in mumbai. it was horrible.
DeleteI'd rather not to be honest, the nuns report on rebel atrocities Latakia did for me sleeping well this month...
DeleteThis is why I am all for people being allowed to open carry their pistols and rifles around. If they tried that in an Israeli Shopping Mall, they would not last too long. The thing here in the USA is that our LEO's and SWAT officers are not trained up to US special operations command standards and no LEO or SWAT officer would never survive the pressures of Special operations training. On top of that most LEO's and SWAT officer are banned from using US heavy weapons such as .50cal sniper rifles, Heavy machine guns.
ReplyDeleteIsrael has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the world and definitely the most restrictive in the Middle East (for its citizens...well except for Iran).
Deletewant me to tell you what would happen to an open carrier in this scenario? they would run just like everyone else. they would get corralled and then gunned down just like everyone else.
do you realize the violence of action that happens during an assault? especially one that is achieved with complete surprise? i guarantee you would have some grown men literally shitting their pants.
open carriers would be killed just like everyone. i really doubt that in this type situation they would even get more than a few shots off. even then it would be pure luck or abject terror. not skill.
I largely agree with your observation. I would only point out that while it is true that Israel has very tight gun laws (it took me almost 5 months to get my carry license in 1980, and it is harder now), there are nonetheless quite a large number of open-carry and CCW weapons on the street at any given time. Soldiers in transit and out on leave, police, Border Guard, citizens from sensitive areas carrying carbines, and citizens with CCW permits (again, actually pretty limited as you said) does make for much more of an armed presence than you would see in most cities around the world. But, as you noted, against a coordinated violent assault, that bunch of un-coordinated shooters would at most be a speed bump. Still, even some resistance might save a life or two and forestall the greater disaster while proper forces respond.
DeleteBTW, I did not know that Israeli gun laws are the most restrictive in the ME. In the immediate neighborhood, maybe; but is it really easier to legally carry firearms in the Gulf States, for instance?
i don't consider the gulf states to be genuinely Arab. they're destinations for decadent business men and rich in the region. they're more like a quasi Arab set that basks in luxury...every where else its dodge city.
DeleteMan, good luck to those Kenyan guys
ReplyDeletethey're gonna need it. this is gonna sound bad but i hope the hostages are already dead. the longer this drags out the longer they're gonna torture and rape those people just like they did in mumbai.
Deletethey're going thrrough hell. Kenyan military is ok by African standards but they're over their heads against this. i hate US involvement in that continent but i hope either us or the Israelis or the South Africans are doing something to kill those bastards.
I have thought about and talked with friends about this scenario: well armed (Ak-47s,Frags,RPG's,semtex etc) and war experienced Al-queda types infiltrate the USA thru mexico ( maybe with the help of Zetas or a cartel that they pay with unrefined heroin)This team of 24 has allready in place US handlers who have done the advance work. This team splits a team of 20 assaults a Mall or soft high profile target while a team of four lays in wait and attacks first responders shooting and moving.meanwhile the us handlers are placing "swating 911 calls to over whelm police and 911"
ReplyDeleteyou just laid out the nightmare scenario. not only would they be on a killing rampage but we also wouldn't have contained them. within a day all business and travel would ground to a halt in the US. we would be lucky to only go into a recession. we would probably slide into a depression.
Deletethe scenario you laid out would do more than kill people. it would kill the western economy. we're still the number one economy in the world. if things grind to a halt here then everywhere suffers.
the terrorist would win a MAJOR victory and would still have more killing to do before they're finally caught.
on another note, when did Kenya buy SCARs?
ReplyDeletethey didn't. i believe that its part of a military aid package. that has the signature of someone in the US military doing the shopping for them.
DeleteTrue, at least they have body armor and what looks to be Kevlar helmets too.
DeleteShit, I go to malls all the time. I really need to get a concealed carry license. In fact, I think that's what I'll start working toward this week. This post actually made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I've always taken it for granite that our police forces and even some of our civilians are better trained in the art of firearms than most terrorists, but seeing terrorists using urban tactics wisely is something that legitimately scares me.
ReplyDeleteIn a lecture I attended with Grossman he said the fastest way to shut down the whole country would be to conduct seemingly random attacks against school buses simultaneously throughout the country. Pull a car across the front of the bus, shoot it up and toss in a grenade, and have 20 two-man teams do it in 20 suburbs in 20 different states. That is scarier than a mall.
ReplyDeleteI think an attack on a mall or as John describes, an attack on a bunch of school buses across the country would scare the crap out of Americans. They also would be relatively easy to conduct, don't need a whole lot of training to ambush a school bus.
ReplyDeleteThe latest news is that maybe some Americans were part of the terrorist group Kenya. With the number of conflicts out there, past and present, finding 20 to 30 pissed off Jihadists to come to wreck havoc and die for Allah inside the US will happen, I am not too sure about creating a cell that big inside the US with local recruits, it could happen but i think the danger is too great of being discovered. Works in Boston when you have 2 brothers and relatively few people in contact but 20 to 40 Jihadists, they would have to be imports which creates it's own set of problems. But there is no doubt in my mind, it will happen....
If a million untrained Mexicans can infiltrate our border, a dozen pairs of men could do so as well. Recruit some Spanish speaking Moroccans from Spain, train them in the Maghreb, hook them up with some traveling money and send them to Mexico.
DeleteOur soft underbelly is so soft, it's not even funny. Even if all they did was set forest and grass fires in a drought stricken region, they could wreak havoc. All it would take is road flares and a windy day.
I've always wondered what if they combined attacks on a region that was hit by natural disasters. If they hit a few railroads, bridges, etc., they could cut off an area geographically to slow down air or rescue.
Picture this. Pick the first weekend in December, find a city in a northern climate and the weather is cold.
Hit a school one day
Hit a mall the next
Then when everyone is home from work with their kids waiting out the chaos, take out electrical power stations, high-voltage lines, natural gas pipelines. Then hit some bridges and railroads so food and fuel can't come in our just-in-time logistics economy.
Watch as the city freaks out, sitting in the cold and dark, cut off from the outside world.
i agree about people other than mexicans infiltrating the US thru the southern border. the documentation is there to show that its going on. disagree with your scenario. cold weather would ground the city to a slowdown but it would also impede the mobility of our mythical strike group. after the first attack the DHS with the FBI in the lead would descend on that city like locust. escape would be possible but more difficult. if they were bent on suicide they could probably strike several targets but the time span would be condensed making the terror campaign somewhat less effective.
Deletebut the bigger point is that we can play one upmanship with possible scenarios all nite long. when John first posted i had to resist i'll take your school bus gambit and raise it by attacking nursery schools and infant wards in hospitals along with churches and synagogues.
the targets in the US are plentiful. the issue is that the NSA spying is starting to look a bit more reasonable when you consider all the possibilities and then think about what they know that we don't.
There are several news organizations reporting that an Israeli Special Forces unit is on site providing "support" to the Kenyans's for the past 12 hours or so. Given that tons of Israeli's spend their vacation time in Kenya (remember the manpads attack on an Israeli charter plane in Mombasa a few years back) it wouldn't surprise me to learn that they have a hostage rescue team on standby in country at all times. But I agree with you Sol, this sort of rampage is all too easy to perpetrate anywhere in the world, and a well armed and motivated squad can inflict horrific damage before any kind of tactical response can be mobilized. God help us all
ReplyDeletewell thats at least some good news. the Israeli's won't fuck around. i'm gonna go political but i think this needs to be said.
Deleteremember when the Arab Spring first started and it was hailed as democracy coming to the middle east? that's why i think the US State Dept and Pentagon are filled with amateurs. even an idiot could see trouble ahead. but instead of dealing with the world the way it is everyone in those shops wanted to see the world through the eyes of college students and professors.
I wonder what Kenya will do in Somalia. They were already there, but I wonder if they will go whole hog out of retribution.
ReplyDeleteIf a squad of these guys pulls it off here, it will make the Patriot Act and the Federal Assault Weapons Ban look like a picnic.
ReplyDeleteA national gun registration database may just become a reality.
Terrosits released islamists, they a target and kill non-islamists. Only fascists doing such things.
ReplyDeleteTime to declare islam as a fascism, and deal with it as with nazi Germany.
what about the Canadian border... from what I hear that's even less monitored than the Mexican, would be less expected, and they would not need to trust an outside organisation with the possibility for leaks...
ReplyDeleteThey could even container in the communications, thermal imaging and other equipment such as jammers, pick up the weapons locally...
How many police forces in the world train for when the communications go down and the enemy can see them coming?
News reports say at least 3 Americans were fighting WITH the terrorist at the mall in Kenya. The 2 largest Somali communities in the U.S. are in Columbus, OH and St. Paul, MN. The Mall of America is in Bloomington, MN about 52 miles away from downtown St. Paul. Just say'n.
ReplyDeleteYou might find this interesting: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/technical_reports/2006/RAND_TR401.pdf
ReplyDeleteat least they have body armor and helmets too.
ReplyDeletehttp://historiaultratumba.blogspot.com/