The_Wall_Street_Journal_Asia__September_13_2016

A6| Tuesday, September 13, 2016 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

FROM PAGE ONE

one message about joining a jihadist team. Then he added that French intelligence services “are reading this. You have a message for them?” The two men were arrested on their return to France in spring 2014. Mr. Mohamed-Ag- gad was sentenced in July to nine years in prison, and Mr. Taher to eight years, both for terrorist association. A lawyer for Mr. Mohamed-Aggad said she was appealing the verdict. A lawyer for Mr. Taher didn’t respond to a request to com- ment. Islamic State tightened security following airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition on its territories in Syria and Iraq. The terror group in October 2014 banned the use of GPS to avoid detection by Western allies, according to documents seized by U.S. Special Forces and viewed by the Journal.

‘A different breed’ Western recruits have since returned from Syria better trained, security officials said. “At the point at which they’re leaving Belgium, France, the U.K., these guys are amateurs. By the time they are turned around and come back again, they are a different breed of terrorist,” said Rob Wainwright, the director of Europol, which coordinates law-enforcement agencies in the European Union. Abaaoud had a close call before the Paris attacks that may have taught him a lesson about the vulnerability of electronic communications. He coordinated a group, including fighters from Islamic State territory, to attack Bel- gium in late 2014, Belgian judges said in May during a trial of accused participants. Members of the group used disposable phones and com- municated, in part, through at least one shared WhatsApp ac- count and Telegram. But they may not have been careful enough. Belgian police tapped their phone lines. The phone taps started with a Belgian man they had suspected of returning from Syria. From there, phone taps and physical surveillance led authorities to accomplices and a house in Verviers, Belgium, used by the alleged plotters. Authorities found weapons, bomb-making chemicals and police uniforms at the house during a January 2015 raid. Two suspected terrorists were killed in a gunfight with police. Western intelligence services used Abaaoud’s communications with the suspected plotters to locate him in Ath- ens. By the time Greek police cordoned off the streets sur- rounding Abaaoud’s hideout, he was gone.

Hunting Abaaoud Western intelligence agencies continued to pursue Abaaoud electronically, inter- cepting data sent by phones linked with him, French officials said. The trail led to Syria. Secu- rity officials suspect Abaaoud

and accomplices there were making final plans for the Paris attacks early last summer, se- lecting targets and choosing attack teams. Around that time, intelligence agencies recorded calls between Abaaoud in Syria and his family in Morocco. In mid-August, Western intelligence agents got an in- kling that Abaaoud aimed to strike France. They arrested Reda Hame, an Islamic State operative and French national, who had returned to France from Syria. Officials say Mr. Hame told them that Abaaoud had ordered him to launch an attack. He also revealed that Abaaoud planned to strike a rock concert, according to a French parliament report. Using cellular networks, Wi- Fi hot spots and satellites, in-

telligence agencies, including from the U.S., stepped up ef- forts to find Abaaoud and his accomplices. Cellphones pinged their locations. The data through mid-October showed Abaaoud moving among the Syrian cities of Raqqa, Manbij and Deir Ezzour. Officials aren’t certain ex- actly when or how Abaaoud and the others landed in Eu- rope. Evidence assembled after the attacks suggests that Abaaoud and other attackers were on the continent at least by late September. Once in Europe, the Paris attackers kept their conversations to a minimum. The three men assigned to attack the Bataclan concert hall with ma- chine guns had no contact for weeks with the three accom-

Workers survey the damage, above, after a raid in November on an apartment in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis a day after Islamic State militant Abdelhamid Abaaoud, pictured below, was killed. Abaaoud had slipped past authorities to lead the Nov. 13 attacks.

CHRISTOPHE ENA/ASOCIATED PRESS (TOP); ZUMA PRESS

Ways ISIS Keeps Its Secrets The terror group’s communications, once commonly conducted on phones and social media accounts easily tracked by authorities, have evolved into a mix of high- and low-tech methods to avoid detection, including encrypted messages, disposable phones, face-to-face meetings, written notes and stretches of silence.

Encrypted apps

Such message services as WhatsApp and Telegram relay messages that are difficult for authorities to decode.

Disposable phones

Cellphones used for as little as a single conversation then tossed to avoid being tracked by cellphone location data.

Misdirection

The strategy of giving cellphones identified with an individual to accomplices who act as decoys, hiding a terrorist's true location.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

Terror Tips: ‘Use and Throw’ Tips posted by Islamic State- related propaganda outlets de- scribe high- and low-tech methods to avoid detection: Switch mobile phones frequently; sign up for online accounts using temporary phone numbers; hop- scotch frequently between chat apps, making any intercepted conversations difficult to follow. “Buy cheap burner phones; use and throw,” Islamic State sympathizers wrote in one chat-app message. The extremist group has also apparently learned to keep

secrets off the grid and to limit who knows what—techniques long used by al Qaeda, which favors messengers and hand- written notes. “They’re using anonymity as much as they use encryption, because encryption can attract the attention of intelligence services,” said Jean-Charles Bri- sard, president of the Center for the Analysis of Terrorism, a Paris-based think tank. “It’s a huge challenge.” —Sam Schechner and Benoit Faucon

name. Some say the wife of a former governor once ate eggs and bacon there, while others believe it came from a native flower whose yellow-and-red blooms resemble the dish. Andy Abramowich, a Cana- dian who owns The Cat’s Tongue Chocolatiers in nearby Huonville, offers a wholly un- substantiated story about a French explorer named “Mon- sieur Oeuf Lardon” who may (or may not) have discovered the place. In addition to choco- lates, Mr. Abramowich sells “Bacon Soap” which, he says, is a “wonder” for bathing. A sign on Mr. Abramowich’s counter reads: “Vegetarians live up to nine years longer than

meat eaters. Nine horrible, worthless, baconless years.” Also found in Australia are Roast Beef Creek and Beefsteak Creek in New South Wales, and Leg of Lamb Bank in Western Australia—the latter named by early cartographers because its contours resembled a Sunday roast. Pip Banks-Smith, a local teacher, said Australia’s obses- sion with food names likely stems from early settlers “imagining beautiful food that they couldn’t have.” Tasmania, a former penal colony off Australia’s southern tip, once relied on logging, mining and agriculture for sus- tenance. Lately, the island state

has reinvented itself as a culi- nary tourism destination. Win- eries and posh restaurants, which serve up dishes such as wallaby kebabs, made from a native marsupial, have sprouted up alongside orchards and wooden farm cottages. Mr. Coad, the mayor, often steps onto his backyard jetty with a net to snag a salmon for dinner. “If you look south, the next stop is Antarctica,” he said. “It’s a pretty unique spot.” The decision whether to change the bay’s name ulti- mately rests with the govern- ment-appointed Tasmanian No- menclature Board. The first step is winning approval of the

Huon Valley Council, a county authority Mr. Coad heads. Among the guidelines officials must consider: Will a name change remove confusion and enhance public safety, and does it have broad community sup- port? The Huon Valley Council’s official Facebook page has been bubbling over with feedback, not all of it entirely helpful. Re- sponding to one glib remark, the council urged the male poster not to be so flippant. “There’s a lot at steak,” they wrote. One potential hitch to the proposal is the awkward fact that pie isn’t actually healthy. An average plate of bacon

and eggs (two fried eggs and two rashers of bacon) has around 255 calories, while a 113-gram slice of store-bought apple and berry pie has roughly 274 calories, according to the Dietitians Association of Aus- tralia. “They are quite similar, with no standout in terms of a better nutritional profile,” a spokeswoman said. On a recent afternoon, Rex Beuganey—who is a vegetar- ian—bit into a slice of apple and cherry pie and declared: “That’s lovely, but I still wouldn’t want the bay to change its name.” His friend, Jim Farley, munching on eggs and bacon, responded: “It ain’t broke so don’t fix it.”

opposed to the move—and to
all forms of arterial correct-
ness. “We’ve been talking about
healthier lifestyles for the last
100 years and every time some-
body comes up with a healthier
alternative, somebody else
knocks it back,” he says.
Outside his shop, the Cygnet
Butchery, Mr. Victor has placed
all-caps sign that declares:
“SAVE EGGS AND BACON BAY!
DON’T GIVE IN TO SMALL-
MINDED PEOPLE.”
No one is quite sure how
Eggs and Bacon Bay got its

ContinuedfromPageOne

BACON

plices assigned to set off bombs at the Stade de France arena. “By the time these guys re- entered Europe, the plan was good to go, such that the communications necessary to de- cide on the plan and get it ready could be kept to a minimum,” said Mr. Wainwright of Europol. When they did communicate, the terrorists used both encrypted message apps and disposable phones. Some phones were used for a single conversation, Bernard Bajolet, head of France’s foreign-intelligence agency, told French parliamen- tary investigators in May. The scale of the Paris attack came as a shock. Three teams of men armed with rifles and suicide belts arrived in rental cars on Friday, Nov. 13. One group sprayed gunfire at out- door restaurant terraces. An- other tried to enter the soccer stadium where the French president was watching the national team. At the concert hall, three terrorists killed 89 people. Three days later, French officials realized Abaaoud wasn’t in Syria, but had directed the Paris carnage in person. On Nov. 18, five days after the killings, a combination of tips, phone taps and cellphone-location data led French officials to an apartment north of Paris, where Abaaoud and two accomplices were killed in an hourslong firefight. The raid left other affiliated terrorists in Belgium—including alleged Paris attacker Salah Abdeslam, who had returned to Brussels—without a

leader, officials said. Some of the men used encrypted communications in an apparent ef- fort to reach allies in Syria for instructions, including Ibrahim el-Bakraoui, one of two broth- ers who died in the suicide- bomb attacks in Brussels. Four months later, on March 22, Mr. el-Bakraoui and two others set off bombs in the Brussels airport; an ac- complice blew himself up on a crowded train. Altogether, 32 people were killed. The men left behind a lap- top and other digital tools for authorities to mine for information, officials said, evidence their security precautions had grown lax. In April, investigators stumbled across another communications tool, the encrypted audio message. Italian prosecutors said Is- lamic State officials in the Middle East had in April sent audio messages over Whats- App to Abderrahim Moutahar- rik, a Moroccan-born Italian. The messages ordered attacks in Italy and were found by chance: Mr. Moutaharrik played them aloud in his car and they were captured by a re- cording device planted by authorities, according to a court document and prosecutors. “Light up the fire on the flowing crowd, pour grenades on the crusader’s head,” said one message, part of an Arabic- language poem. “Don’t have mercy until he’s broken.” —Matthew Dalton, Noemie Bisserbe and Manuela Mesco Rescue workers ferry a wounded victim from the Bataclan concert hall after the Paris attacks. contributed to this article.

THIBAULT CAMUS/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Western security official: “We
relied too much on technology.
And we lost track.”
Terror attacks in Europe,
which have killed more than
200 people in the past 20
months, reflect new opera-
tional discipline and technical
savvy by the Islamic State ter-
rorists who carried them out,
security officials said.
The extremist group’s com-
munications, once commonly
conducted on phones and so-
cial-media accounts easily
tracked by authorities, have
evolved into a mix of en-
crypted chat-app messages
over WhatsApp and Telegram,
face-to-face meetings, written
notes, stretches of silence and
misdirection.
These techniques helped
protect attackers from West-
ern intelligence agencies by
leaving few electronic clues in
a sea of intercepted data.
In recent months, Europe
has been convulsed by a string
of simple yet lethal attacks.
Some were committed by peo-
ple who appear to have re-
ceived little direct training
from Islamic State. The sus-
pects in a failed plot in France
last week were “remotely con-
trolled” from Syria by the
group, prosecutors said Friday.
Officials worry such attacks
could be a way to distract intel-
ligence services while militants
prepare more complex plots.

The Paris attackers commu-
nicated sparingly—electronic
silences sometimes lasted
weeks—as they crossed the
continent in September and
October en route to their
deadly rendezvous in Paris, se-
curity officials said. When
they did communicate, they at
times called or sent text mes-
sages on disposable cellphones
they used once and tossed.
“Try to make it so that even
if the idolatrous dogs intercept
and decrypt your messages...the
only information they will be
able to find is your username
and password,” advised Islamic
State’s French-language maga-
zine Dar Al Islam this spring.
Patrick Calvar, head of
France’s main domestic intelli-
gence agency, told French par-
liament investigators in May
that Islamic State had become a
hierarchical, militarized organi-
zation, drawing expertise from
experienced jihadists and veter-
ans of Iraqi security forces.
“We’re dealing with people
who are well versed in clan-
destine operations, and who
understand our capabilities,”
Mr. Calvar said. “We’re up
against real professionals.”
This Wall Street Journal ac-
count of the evolving state of
Islamic State communications
is based on court filings, gov-
ernment transcripts and Is-
lamic State propaganda and
internal documents, as well as
interviews with officials inves-
tigating terror cells in Brus-
sels and Paris.
Islamic State is a militant
group of the internet age, its
followers steeped in Facebook,
smartphones and text messag-
ing. These tools, which helped
spread the terror group’s mes-
sage around the world, also
helped authorities foil plots,
capture suspects and win con-
victions in the group’s early
years.
Karim Mohamed-Aggad, a
brother of one of the Paris at-
tackers, sent text messages ex-
tolling jihad and martyrdom in
late 2013 before heading to
Syria with friends from Stras-
bourg, France, according to a
court document. Radouane Ta-
her, a companion, talked in

ContinuedfromPageOne

ISIS

The Paris attacks

showed how badly

authorities were

fooled.

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