A former
FBI counter terrorism expert claims the bloody October 13 Paris attack wasn’t a
full-fledged assault, but a cold-blooded ISIS “test” to assess its ability to
launch small, randomized attacks in a major Western city.
That
expert, Eric O’Neill, told the Daily Caller News Foundation that ISIS was
testing the model he called, “small randomized attacks” when it went on a
shooting and bombing spree throughout Paris, killing 129 people and wounding
another 352.
“I think
this was a test to see how well this could work in a city. Can we coordinate
it? Can we effectively carry it out,” O’Neill told the DCNF. “My sense is
they are benchmarking themselves. They are going to see if this could be
deployed somewhere else because if this was a test, then they passed.”
The same
test “could have happened in a Washington, D.C. or New York, or Los Angeles and
San Francisco, yeah, easily,” he said.
In
February 2001, O’Neil helped capture the most notorious spy in United States
history, Robert Phillip Hanssen. In the three months preceding Hanssen’s
arrest, O’Neill worked with the spy within the newly minted information
assurance division, created to protect all classified FBI intelligence. O’Neil
was charged with gaining Hanssen’s trust and then using that relationship to
slowly draw the traitor out of deep cover.
O’Neil
believes the U.S. is next on the terrorist group’s target list. He said it
is now more likely in the post-attack assessment stage.
ISIS
leaders are probably saying, “let’s go back to the white board. Let’s
figure out what we did wrong and what we did right? How could we do
better,” he said.
Another
counter terrorism analyst who requested anonymity agreed, telling the DCNF that
ISIS has abandoned the al Qaeda model, which targeted “symbolic” targets such
as the World Trade Center and the Pentagon which were attacked on Sept. 11,
2001.
The ISIS
model is to target smaller, “softer” venues that are hard to protect like bars,
restaurants, concert halls and public events.
O’Neill
said the tactic generates fear because when random attacks occur, no place is
safe. “Small randomized attacks cause a much greater sense of terror than
one large attack.”
The new
tactic maximizes fear “because you don’t know where the next one is going to
hit,” O’Neil told the DCNF.
Not
everything went well for the terrorists, according to O’Neil. The bombers at
the soccer stadium arrived late and detonated themselves outside.
“If he
had been there a little earlier, he might have gone in. It would have been far
more devastating,” O’Neil said. “My sense is the coordination was off.
They started the other shootings too early, or the one with the main bomb at
the stadium was too late.”
The
random attacks kept French police off balance. “So you attack one place.
They run. They attack another place. They pop up somewhere else. And they
keep going until authorities finally catch up with them.”
O’Neill’s
analysis fits the final police description of what happened on that Friday
night. The attackers first opened fire on Petit Cambodge, a Cambodian
Restaurant, then went to other side of the street at Le Carillion
bar. Fifteen died there at both restaurants.
The next
attack from the same shooters came 500 yards away at the Casa Nostra pizzeria,
then drove to LaBelle Equipe bar, killing at least 19.
“Here we
have a group that sowed a small, effective operation in Paris, and I believe
that the intent was to keep going until they got caught.”
O’Neil
added that the shooters were well trained and took careful aim at their
victims.
“Apparently
the shooter took a professional shooter stance. Clearly he was trained. Rifle
to shoulder. He was not doing his typical mob movie culture ‘head spray’ to do
as much damage as possible. He was aiming his shots, shot after shot,
preserving ammo and getting the highest kill count possible,” he said.
Two other
separate groups hit the soccer stadium. But most media attention was on the
holding of hostages at the Bataclan concert venue where at least 89 were
killed, many one-by-one execution style.
O”Neil
says while most of the media centered its coverage at the concert hall, the
reason for the citywide lockdown was because of the mobile shooters. “We saw
law enforcement presence all over because they were still hunting down the guys
they hadn’t caught. They didn’t want to tell anyone that because they didn’t
want to increase the fear. I think that was going on,” he told the DCNF.
“What
they did in Paris which was genius, if you were a terrorist,” he said.