Morality aside, most terrorists are idiots.
Many terrorists are loners motivated by a desire to find kinship and belong to a greater cause. Others are driven by the belief that society has been unfair to them. Others fall for propaganda or charismatic recruiters. Regardless, the vast majority of terrorists are not terribly smart. Their ignorance is valuable for domestic counter-terrorism efforts.
Basic stupidity, after all, tends to separate domestic terrorists from their counterparts in ISIS-controlled areas of Syria, Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon, or al Qaeda safe havens such as Afghanistan. Those terrorists abroad will be trained in what are known as "operational security" techniques. They'll be taught to mitigate the risk of their activities being detected by foreign intelligence services. This operational security is critical when it comes to being able to successfully effect attacks such as those which occurred in Paris in November 2015.
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In contrast, domestic-inspired terrorists tend to show far less awareness of operational security measures. Why does this matter?
Well, because it becomes much easier for the FBI to detect a terrorist plotter when said plotter is Googling "how to build a bomb," or buying large amounts of explosive precursors, or chatting with anyone who will talk to them about jihadism online. Or telling anyone who will listen about their grandiose plans to save, purify or otherwise violently affect the nation or some demographic therein.
Sometimes, however, a terrorist shows a special skill that makes their threat far greater. This skill can come in different forms. Osama bin Laden's charisma helped al Qaeda recruit legions of terrorists, for example. ISIS's extraordinary battlefield successes in 2013-2014 lent credibility to the group's claim of ordained destiny, dramatically increasing its recruitment appeal. Terrorist skill can also come in a more technical form.
Take the 9/11 hijackers, trained to fly passenger airliners into buildings and simultaneously evade FBI detection while preparing their attacks. The technical knowledge those terrorists possessed and applied changed American society forever. Another example is offered by the late al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula bomb-maker, Ibrahim al-Asiri. Until his 2017 death, al-Asiri was responsible for numerous innovative plots. These included the underwear bomb attempt to bring down a passenger airliner, the ingenious hiding of bombs in cargo planes, and the surgical embedding of liquid explosives (Saudi intelligence was critical to obstructing various al-Asiri attacks on the West, history that bears relevance to present day U.S.-Saudi relations). Yet another technical-skill example comes via the Pakistan-based al Qaeda terrorist Rashid Rauf. Rauf was responsible for the 2006 transatlantic airliner plot. That plot may have failed, but it precipitated the passenger liquid carry on restrictions we see today.
Last week, we gained another reminder of the particular threat that terrorists with technical knowledge can pose.
It came in the form of a mechanical engineering PhD student in the United Kingdom. Using his engineering knowledge and access to a 3D printer, 27 year-old Mohamad al Bared built a kamikaze aerial drone for ISIS. His simple but effective drone was capable of flying an explosive warhead five miles. The terrorist intended to travel to Syria to teach ISIS how to replicate more drones based on his design. Had al-Bared not been caught and convicted at trial last week, he may have been able to conduct an extraordinary drone attack on a U.K. target. Imagine if he had been able to fly a drone from the London suburbs into a crowded central London shopping street, for example? Or into Parliament? Or into...
This is just another reminder, then, that not all terrorists are equal. Many are stupid. But those who match ideological dedication to operational security to technical knowledge can pose extremely serious threats.