Spycraft - Melton [194]
The Soviet Union remained the focus for OTS foreign-equipment testing well into the 1980s. The work analyzing Soviet and East European spy devices offered invaluable counterintelligence data for the FBI, State Department, and U.S. military security components that were also developing countermeasures.
However, with the number of terrorist organizations multiplying in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia in the 1970s, the Agency began acquiring explosives and bomb fragments from terrorist caches and post-blast investigations. As most early terrorist bombs were individually fabricated from whatever parts and materials the bomb maker had at hand, these were collectively known as Improvised Explosive Devices or IEDs. The OTS expertise in reverse engineering and knowledge of foreign electronic circuits proved to be the perfect match for unraveling the firing, triggering, and timing mysteries of these weapons. It was in this way, almost by accident, that Orkin and his colleagues became the Agency’s focal point for collecting, analyzing, and cataloging instruments of terror.
“The analysis of terrorist devices evolved slowly; it was an occasional item here and there. In fact we initiated some activity ourselves, going to the counterterrorism officers and asking them, ‘What do you have?’ And they’d say, ‘Oh, here’s a device that I picked up in Jordan in 1978.’ And we’d offer to do a report,” remembered Orkin. “Initially we were working backwards on stuff found a few years before. If anything looked like it had been made in more than one quantity or if it looked like something we might see again, we’d take it and do a report on it.”
Orkin began detecting a disturbing pattern of state-of-the-art technology making its way into terrorist devices in the early 1980s. Terror organizations that relied on crude timers and other components for their bombs a few years earlier were now acquiring advanced technology that greatly increased the lethality of terrorist bombs.
“The reason that technology became available was because of state-supported terrorism. Terrorists could buy the needed technology because Syria, Libya, and a few other countries like Iran and Iraq were giving them money,” said Orkin. “Initially they used very simple devices, like timers that you had in your kitchen, alarm clocks, and wristwatches with the hole drilled in the center—they really used the kind of basic stuff you see in the movies. I put 1984 as the date when they began to apply newer technologies to these devices. We began seeing multiple examples of the same device, indicating that they were fabricating them in small ‘production runs.’”
This was a significant turn of events. Terrorists could now get electronics engineers to design the timing circuit for a bomb instead of relying on someone with little training working in his cellar with a soldering iron. Terrorists, who had traditionally been impassioned amateurs, were finding allies, tutors, and funding from the intelligence professionals of rogue countries. Established governments were now directly aiding terrorism by providing cash and enabling networks for procurement and shipment of components and devices.
“Throughout the eighties the terrorists progressed from devices that were fairly simple to those of professional quality,” explained Orkin. “We saw the devices evolve. We would think, boy that’s not a good way to do this, and when the next device came in, we’d see the problem fixed.”
Orkin, an intelligence officer as well as engineer, pinpointed a potential vulnerability that might be exploited. The more advanced and technologically specialized each component became, the more likely it could be traced back through supply channels