A resounding French fiasco

George Tenet, who served as director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency during 9/11, later testified that when he was informed that the first plane had struck the World Trade Center, he held his head in his hands and told himself that "it must be Muslims who went to flight school in the United States." A variation of this sentence must have been resonating in the minds of the heads of French intelligence this weekend, following the string of shocking terrorist attacks in Paris.

French intelligence allegedly had all the information it needed, including the names and photos of brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi, both of whom were on various watchlists. They knew one of the brothers had visited and trained in Yemen, and they were allegedly familiar with the way potential orders would trickle down to operatives on the ground -- from Yemen to radical Islamists jailed in France, and from them to the brothers.

This type of intelligence, and basic counterterrorism measures, mandated placing the brothers under close surveillance with the aim of discerning their movements. Had such surveillance been carried out, it would have undoubtedly yielded indications that the orders given to the brothers made for a nefarious plan. Such indications, it appears, were in abundance: A five-person operation of this nature requires preparations, coordination, intelligence gathering, and a complex process of acquiring the weapons and means necessary to carry it out.

The French fiasco resonates louder given several factors, including the 2012 terrorist attack on a Jewish school in Toulouse and the 2014 terrorist attack on the Jewish Museum of Belgium -- two incidents that made it clear radical Islam was active in Europe; the growing number of European Muslims who joined the Islamic State group, which led to the creation of various "black lists" detailing dangerous individuals that warranted close surveillance; and warnings issued by Western intelligence agencies, saying that Islamic State would retaliate against the West over the coalition's airstrikes against its strongholds in Syria and Iraq.

The French operation to end the two hostage situations should not be criticized too harshly despite the various errors that hampered it. French security forces did not control the timing of the operation, whose end was forced on them by the fact that the Kouachi brothers stormed out of the warehouse they were hiding in with guns blazing -- a development which, in turn, meant police forces outside the kosher supermarket in eastern Paris had to storm it to prevent the terrorist held up inside from killing the hostages. The rapid course of events meant that French security forces had to forfeit intelligence gathering and preparations, which would have undoubtedly made for a better operation.

The lesson France, and the world, must learn from the Paris attacks is that this budding wave of terror will not end with these five terrorists. Islamic State and al-Qaida operatives, and those sympathetic to their cause, will undoubtedly try to imitate the success of the Paris attacks, and thwarting their efforts will require intelligence and operational efforts, international cooperation, and determination by security and law enforcement. Some European nations will have to changes their laws, but even more so -- they will have to change their way of thinking. This was not just another terror attack. This is war over the very existence of the free world.

טעינו? נתקן! אם מצאתם טעות בכתבה, נשמח שתשתפו אותנו