He added that the objectives of the Interagency Task Force
for Irregular Warfare for the near term include disrupting
some specific elements of terror networks. “If you find
bad stuff in the wrong places, you have to call it like you
see it. We continue to see that and continue to watch it,”
Holmes said. “Our business is looking at this malign
influence and then figuring out what we can do to counter
it … in a holistic manner, not necessarily just force
on force.” He added that to counter, combat and, ultimately,
defeat these kinds of networked activities, it will take more
than just military force over the long term.
Holmes said the Interagency Task Force for Irregular Warfare,
which includes other federal partners and nongovernmental
agencies, will be able to better pursue certain elements that
the military is not authorize to pursue. "if there's
a maligned actors in the battlespace that are supporting [our
enemy], killing coalition forces, killing civilians and disrupting
our efforts, we've got to have a way to deal with those folks
and get them out of the battlespace." said General Holmes.
He stressed that If these elements are not considered an enemy
combatant, there must be a way to deal with them out of the
battlespace. "We as a nation need them out of the battlespace."
he said. "There are certain things that the Justice Department
can do, coupled with international policing through Interpol,
that we can criminalize and get that bad actor out of the
battlespace. So from my point of view, I really don't care
how we get them out of there. Holmes concluded.
Another aspect of the new task force's responsibility is
the monitoring and disruption of “adversarial information
operations" - or communications tactics addressing feeding
local and foreign journalists and triggering media reports
with misleading information about civilian casualties. Holmes
said that both the Taliban in Afghanistan and terrorists in
Iraq have both adopted this type of tactic. “[There
is a] discrepancy in what we see in open-source reporting
with regard to civilian casualties and then what is actually
in our operational reporting,” Holmes said. “I
believe that the enemy uses this tactic to try to dissuade
a civilian populace from the things that are actually going
on there.” We're looking at countering some of the line
networks -- and I can't go much past that -- but we're --
part of the task force is a very robust operational and intelligence
fusion center, and it is directing a primary effort toward
disrupting some specific elements of some terror networks.
The interagency task force also is looking into the networks
of the Taliban and al-Qaida. Holmes said both terrorist organizations
have specialists who are savvy in manipulating the media.
“There is a malign actor there that, in my mind, would
have the purpose in an information operation campaign, and
that is clearly a piece of terrain for our adversary, that
they are going to use this to their advantage,” Holmes
said. And that advantage can be significant in the court of
world opinion, the general noted, because organizations with
nefarious intentions will put out whatever information suits
their motives. Once information is put into the dynamic information
environment, misleading perceptions are easily created. “Often,
truth is no longer important; it’s just out there,”
he explained. “If I was my opponent, and I wanted to
do something against someone I knew was grounded in truthful
principles, … then I would use that to my advantage.”
“We’re bound to tell the truth, and in most cases
our adversary is not,” Holmes noted.
Another trend the interagency task force is watching and
trying to weigh out is the use of female suicide bombers.
Though it’s not a significant trend at this point, young
or mentally disabled women being used as suicide bombers is
a departure in enemy tactics. “It’s too early
to say that this may be a sign of desperation,” Holmes
said. “We watched the recruitment and flow of young
males that have been recruited to be suicide bombers. We have
been trying to target that network to disrupt that flow.”
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