Risk-Based Methodology for Scenario Tracking, Intelligence Gathering, and Analysis for Countering Terrorism

Disruption of a terrorist attack depends on having information facilitating the identification and location of those involved in supporting, planning, and carrying out the attack. Such information arises from myriad sources, such as human or instrument surveillance by intelligence or law enforcement agencies, a variety of documents concerning transactions, and tips from a wide range of occasional observers. Given the enormous amount of information available, a method is needed to cull and analyze only that which is relevant to the task, confirm its validity, and eliminate the rest. The risk-based methodology for scenario tracking, intelligence gathering, and analysis for countering terrorism builds on the premise that in planning, supporting, and carrying out a terrorist plot, those involved will conduct a series of related activities for which there may be some observables and other acquirable evidence. Those activities taken together constitute a threat scenario. Information consistent with a realistic threat scenario may be useful in thwarting an impending attack. Information not consistent with any such scenario is irrelevant. Thus, the methodology requires a comprehensive set of realistic threat scenarios that would form a systemic process for collecting and analyzing information. It also requires a process for judging the validity and usefulness of such information. The key questions for intelligence gathering and analysis are: how to produce a compreRegular Paper *Author to whom all correspondence should be addressed (e-mail: [email protected]). Systems Engineering, Vol. 6, No. 3, 2003 © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.