Could Properly Trained Firefighters

Could Properly Trained Firefighters Have Prevented 9-11?

By: Keith A. Harper, President and CEO of The Counter Threat Institute, Intl.

Trained, alert, and empowered firefighters, EMS and medical personnel are much more likely to come across indicators of a domestic or international terrorist plot than law enforcement or intelligence agents; but will they recognize it for what it is and report it in time? Were it not for the late night and early morning observations of firefighters answering a strange odor call in January of 1995, casually shared the next day with a police officer, tragedy would have struck. More than 4,000 people, mostly Americans, would have been killed, twelve airliners would have been blown from the sky, the Pope would have been assassinated, and a plane loaded with high explosives would have crashed into CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

This terrorist attack, known as the Bojinka Plot or “Boom” Plot, is a historical fact, and is one of the reason that Ramzi Yousef sits in a high security federal prison in Colorado and Khalid Shaik Mohammed awaits a military or civil trial today. “Bojinka’s” planned victims probably don’t know that they owe their lives to that team of professional firefighters from the Manila Fire Service and to a police woman named Aida Fariscal who, after hearing them describe objects in an apartment near the embassy of the Vatican, connected the dots and realized that this might be the bomb factory responsible for a series of deadly bombings in Manila. Fariscal investigated immediately and by happenstance arrived at the apartment when co-conspirator Abdul Hakim Murad returned to the apartment to retrieve Yousef’s computer. The computer, as it turned out, detailed the entire plot.

We have been arguing the merits of better coordination and integration of Fire, EMS, and Law Enforcement in threat information collection for years. The Bojinka plot is the perfect case study to explain why law enforcement is only one piece of the puzzle in criminal intelligence integration. And it explains why full integration into the Terrorism Liaison Officer Programs should be a priority of Fire, EMS, medical personnel and private industry. Bojinka should be used as a Fire and EMS recruitment tool by the 72 national fusion centers and as a basis for encouraging standardized Counter Threat training for all Firefighters and Emergency Medical Technicians. Here, in detail, is what KSM, the evil mastermind of the terrible September 11th attacks first tried to achieve, and how a few firefighters and a dedicated cop prevented his first attempt at killing Americans and disrupting the world’s economy.

Mohammed and his nephew, Ramzi Yousef, both Kuwaiti nationals of ethnic Beluchi descent, sought fame within the Sunni Islamic Extremism movement as terror operation planners. Yousef had already achieved high recognition by the movement for his contributions to the first World Trade Center attacks, despite what could be described as a bumbling series of missteps and accidents. Mohammed reportedly desired some of the same cache that his three-years-younger nephew had already achieved, and hatched the Bojinka plot.
Funded by Osama bin Ladin and his brother-in-law, Mohammed Jamal Khalifa (later arrested in Mountain View California as part of the first WTC bombing), Yousef set up a bomb making shop in the Philippine capital of Manila - very close to the Vatican’s embassy. Their first idea was to assassinate U.S. President Bill Clinton during a state visit, however, they settled on a more “practical” plan for a spectacular series of attacks with greater chance for success. They would train twenty-five bombers, build nitroglycerin bombs, plant them on eleven or twelve US based airliners and explode them over two days. They also planned to set bombs along the pathway of Pope John Paul’s motorcade dressed as priests to carry out the task.

Mohammed and Yousef began constructing and experimenting with explosive devices, and planted them in public places in Manila to test them. These attacks went unsolved until a police officer had a conversation with fire brigade members who described the suspicious odor and fire call they had attended the night before. This officer, incidentally, had become one after her husband had been killed in the line of duty. Her name is Aida Fariscal. Officer Fariscal realized that the items they described were not only suspicious, but were very possibly associated with the series of bombings plaguing her district. She went to the apartments and discovered hot plates and other indicia of explosive manufacturing. As I mentioned earlier, she also ran into Abdul Hakim Murad, who had been sent back to the apartment to retrieve Yousef’s computer which contained all of the details of the Bojinka plot, including involvement by Youseff, Khalifa, Murad and Mohammed. Yousef was eventually captured and prosecuted. Although KSM went on to successfully mount the attacks of 9-11. Had those firefighters not provided that critical information to Fariscal, the devastation of 9-11 would have come six years earlier and thousands more would have potentially lost their lives.

It is interesting to ask what might have happened had those firefighters been properly trained in counter threat tactics. What actions might they have taken had they been fully trained to recognize the operational indicators of explosive manufacture? Maybe 9-11 would never have happened and KSM and his nephew would have been captured that night in 1995 by the Manila Police long before he had the approval of Bin Ladin to set the events of 9-11 into motion. Had EMT, medical personnel and firefighters been trained to report chemical burns and explosive injuries, that entire series of bomb test attacks in Manila might never have occurred. After all, Yousef regularly burned and blew himself up…hence the chemical fire in the Dona Josepha Apartments that night in January. This is a regularly occurring theme, as the same can be said for Japanese Red Army bomber Yu Kikumura who, like many bombers, burned and maimed himself in the manufacturing his own homemade bombs.

Training, education and coordination are the first victims of a hard knock economy. So, if you think things are bad now,. just keep in mind the goals of these enemies of democracy. They have repeatedly told us that their goal is to completely crush the American economy. Training is not a luxury in war, it is an absolutely essential force multiplier. So, let’s get started! Next month we begin looking at some of the operational indicators firefighters should be aware of in detail and I am looking forward to bringing you some potentially life-saving information

Thank you for your service. Be safe. Challenge yourselves and congratulations to you for your intellectual curiosity.

Keith Harper BIO
Mr. Harper is the President & CEO of the Counter Threat Institute, Interrnational LLC (CTI) in San Carlos, California and is Director of Military Affairs of Henley-Putnam University in San Jose, California , a military officer and the Special Agent in Charge (IMA) of one of the largest Department of Defense counterterrorism units in the world. His opinions recorded here belong to him and are not necessarily representative of the views of his agency, or the United States of America. CTI is the premiere Terrorism Liaison Officer training provider to each of the California Regional Terrorism Threat Assessement Centers (RTTAC), Cal P.O.S.T. and hundreds of US and Canadian Agencies engaged in counterterrorism initiatives. Mr. Harper is a retired California peace officer, a US DoD Special Agent in Charge, and a former Terrorism Task Force Officer and Deputy US Marshall who was assigned to the Federal Joint Terrorism Task Force in San Francisco. He has extensive domestic and international operational antiterrorism and counterterrorism experience. You may contact CTI using their website at; http://www.counterthreatinstitute.com/

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