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Counterterrorism Coalition Conference Marks Several Firsts

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DYNAMIC PAGE -- HIGHEST POSSIBLE CLASSIFICATION IS TOP SECRET // SI / TK // REL TO USA AUS CAN GBR NZL (S) Counterterrorism Coalition Conference Marks Several Firsts FROM: FAD's Special Advisor to CT for Foreign Partner Strategies (DP1) Run Date: 06/14/2005 (S//SI) The semi-annual SIGINT Seniors Counterterrorism Coalition (SISECT) conference held recently in Canada was by all measures a huge success, marked by several firsts: first participation by the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD), first meeting of the Counterterrorism (CT) Deputies (a management-level forum commissioned by the Seniors in June 04 to identify ways to optimize the multilateral sharing of lead information), first open discussion of C2C (computer to computer) issues. (TS//SI) CT analysts from the twelve participating nations (Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the UK, and the US) presented formal briefings, ranging from applying the NATO I&W (Indications & Warning) system to the CT problem, to follow the money and CBRN topics, to terrorist-related maritime operations, to Iraq, to Sunni activity in Europe. Highlights were a Dutch brief on a self-radicalized 17-year-old they had recently arrested (which illustrated all too well how some are able very successfully to elude coming up on anyone's radar) and the Danish and Swedish briefs on extremists active in their own backyards. (TS//SI) The analytic group discussion topics included changing terrorist modus operandi, the Iraqi Jihadist Highways Project/Syrian facilitation networks, north African extremist networks in Europe, and Ansar al-Islam (AI) in Europe. Inter alia, the nations: validated the exchange of telephony metadata to support traffic analysis and call chaining efforts; began work on standardizing formats to facilitate the exchange of call chaining diagrams via SIGDASYS ; began a discussion of language issues; agreed to continue collaboration on the Jihadist Highways Project; agreed in principle to participating in additional collaboration topics (agreeing to share priority projects/focus areas and agreeing to a second joint project, this one on AI in Europe ); agreed to the CT Deputies' stated need for documenting measures of success related to sharing within SISECT; and agreed to prime their respective Seniors on the legal/policy issues related to the sharing of C2C information. The nations were unanimous in their characterization of SISECT as having become a true community, with ever-increasing levels of trust and openness -- and the enthusiasm was infectious. (U//FOUO) This article is reprinted from May's Foreign Affairs Digest "(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet without the consent of S0121 (DL sid_comms)." DYNAMIC PAGE -- HIGHEST POSSIBLE CLASSIFICATION IS TOP SECRET // SI / TK // REL TO USA AUS CAN GBR NZL DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108

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