Shrinking the haystack

WHEN selecting a base for preparing attacks, jihadists should choose flats that are on the ground floor, hard to peer into, not near government buildings and unsecluded in a newly built neighbourhood. So advises “Declaration of Jihad Against the Country’s Tyrants”, an al-Qaeda manual found in Manchester in 2000. Flats conforming to these specifications make it easier to dig secret storage areas under the floor, to melt away into the city and to avoid attention from neighbours who, were they longtime residents, might take a greater interest in newcomers.

Thanks to the clever use of software, tips from this and other manuals obtained by intelligence agencies are proving increasingly valuable to counter-terrorist forces deployed both in the West and abroad. Technologists are modifying existing mapping software to produce “geographic profiling” programs that show which areas should be searched or put under surveillance first in the hunt for hideouts, bomb workshops and weapons caches. “Declaration of Jihad Against the Country’s Tyrants”, for example, was a cornerstone of Building Intent, a geoprofiling program developed by Alper Caglayan of Milcord, in Massachusetts, for America’s defence department.