Why terrorists overwhelm security agencies

为什么恐怖分子会压倒安全机构

本文英文版本来自4月7日的《英国卫报》，中文翻译由世诺留学提供，供英语学习爱好者使用，如有侵权请联系删除。

As Nigeria continues to count its losses from the recent spate of attacks by bandits on public facilities, military formations and innocent lives in Kaduna State, some ranking members of the intelligence community have identified reasons it might be difficult for the country to win the war against terrorism.

随着尼日利亚继续统计其在卡杜纳州公共设施、军事编队和无辜生命最近遭受的一连串土匪袭击中的损失，情报界的一些高级成员已经确定了该国可能难以赢得反恐战争的原因。

While they listed manpower challenge and lack of collaboration between security agencies as part of the problems on the one-hand, they undercsored failure of intelligence within the security sector and lack of will power by the political leadership to end the war as key obstacles.

虽然他们一方面将人力挑战和安全机构之间缺乏合作列为问题的一部分，但他们低估了安全部门情报的失败、政治领导层缺乏将结束战争作为主要障碍的意志力。

Recall that bandits unleashed repeated attacks on Kaduna last week, involving the Kaduna train station, an Abuja-Kaduna-bound train, Kaduna airport, and military formations, leading to loss of lives, with several kidnapped citizens still held captive.

回想一下，上周，匪徒对卡杜纳发动了多次袭击，涉及卡杜纳火车站、一列开往阿布贾-卡杜纳的火车、卡杜纳机场和军事编队，导致人员伤亡，几名被绑架的公民仍被关押。

But the Kaduna attacks are only recurrences of several such incidences across the country, which the security agencies now seem not to have answers to or the wherewithal to thwart or repel.

但卡杜纳袭击事件只是全国各地几起此类事件的重演，安全机构现在似乎没有答案，也没有必要阻止或击退这些事件。

One of such attacks was carried out sometime in June 2021, when suspected armed bandits invaded Igangan Community in Ibarapa area of Ibadan, Oyo State in the dead of the night and unleashed mayhem on unsuspecting residents.

其中一次袭击是在2021年6月的某个时候进行的，当时疑似武装匪徒入侵了伊巴丹因巴布拉地区的伊甘甘社区，在夜深人静的奥约州，对毫无戒备的居民造成了混乱。

In the process, 11 persons were killed, while some vehicles and buildings including the Palace of the Asigangan of Igangan town and a filling station were torched. Residents alleged that the gunmen stormed the community with over 20 motorcycles. News later made the round that information about the impending attack was passed to the appropriate quarters but no action was taken to forestall it .

在这一过程中，11人被杀，一些车辆和建筑，包括伊甘甘镇的阿西甘安宫和一个加油站被烧毁。居民称，持枪歹徒用20多辆摩托车袭击了该社区。后来有消息称，有关即将发生的袭击的信息已传递给有关方面，但没有采取任何行动来阻止袭击。

In a nation with a gamut of intelligence and security agencies, equipped to intercept information or gather intelligence with a view to using such to thwart attacks by bandits and/or terrorists, it is confounding that “unknown gunmen” or “bandits” would repeatedly launch attacks on public facilities and innocent lives, leaving in their trail deaths and destruction.

在一个拥有各种情报和安全机构的国家，他们有能力拦截信息或收集情报，以期利用这些信息挫败土匪和/或恐怖分子的袭击，令人困惑的是，“不明身份的枪手”或“土匪”会反复对公共设施和无辜生命发动袭击，留下死亡和破坏。

Reacting to the recent attacks, a retired army intelligence officer, Col. Hassan Stan-Labo reasoned that failure of intelligence could be the explanation for the “attacks that came in piecemeal one after the other.

针对最近的袭击事件，一位退休的陆军情报官员哈桑·斯坦·拉博上校（Col.Hassan Stan Labo）推断，情报失败可能是“一次又一次零星袭击”的原因。

“What could be wrong with the intelligence community entirely? It beats my imagination as an officer that we would still be talking about things like this at this time. More so, these are attacks that came in piecemeal after the other. It beats me hollow and it is something that anybody that belongs to the intelligence community should bury his head in shame for. Even if intelligence has gone to sleep, once an incident happens, it wakes everybody up. Leadership immediately directs on what needs to be done, they spread their tentacles and begin to read the minds of the enemy and envisage their next step.

“情报界到底有什么问题？作为一名官员，我无法想象此时我们仍会谈论这样的事情。更重要的是，这些攻击是一个接一个地发生的。这让我感到很空虚，属于情报界的任何人都应该为之感到羞愧。即使情报部门已经睡着了，一旦一个事故发生，它也该唤醒所有人。领导层立即指示需要做什么，他们展开触角，开始了解敌人的想法，并设想下一步行动。

“Like in the case of the rail incident, without even being an intelligence personnel, any one would know that all traffic would immediately be diverted to the Kaduna expressway. And the enemies we are fighting are reading the battle correctly; while we moved to the rail after their attack, they moved to the road and they got us. That is good thinking and good operational delivery,” Stan-Labo said.

斯坦·拉博（Stan-Labo）说：“就像铁路事件一样，即使不是情报人员，任何人都会知道，所有的交通都将立即被转移到卡杜纳高速公路。和我们战斗的敌人正在正确地解读这场战斗；当他们袭击后我们移到铁路上时，他们移到了公路上，他们抓住了我们。这是良好的想法和良好的行动转换。”。

The retired officer noted that manpower issues, which had always been identified, are still bedeviling the entire security sector and remained the main reason why the terrorism war is yet to be won.

这位退休军官指出，一直以来都被发现的人力问题仍然困扰着整个安全部门，并且仍然是恐怖主义战争尚未取得胜利的主要原因。

He said, “A country of over 250million Nigerians that is fighting a long-drawn terrorism battle is still bedeviled by manpower issues. Could that country be said to be serious? I expect that the entire 30km stretch of the Kaduna-Zaria road, consisting of those three notorious communities that are giving us headaches, would by now have been embedded with plain-cloth security personnel. This ought to have been done in such a way that when you are walking on any road or footpath in the communities, for every five people you pass by, three should be intelligence personnel, ranging from a man that sells Kolanut to people that sell groundnut, hawking all sorts of things. You set up your intelligence systems with these people in the communities and in no long a time, you would have vital information required to thwart attacks. This is the way intelligence is done, not the executive intelligence we are practicing these days. Before you talk to some of our personnel, he has already introduced himself as a DSS officer. In those days, you hardly know them.”

他说，“一个有超过2.5亿尼日利亚人的国家，正在进行一场旷日持久的恐怖主义斗争，但仍然受到人力问题的困扰。这个国家能说是严重的吗？我预计，整个30公里长的卡杜纳-扎里亚公路，包括让我们头疼的三个臭名昭著的社区，现在已经配备了便衣安全人员。这应该以这种方式开展：当你在社区的任何道路或人行道上行走时，每经过五个人，就有三个人应该是情报人员，从卖科拉努特的人到卖花生、兜售各种东西的人。你和社区里的这些人很快建立了你的情报系统，你就会掌握阻止攻击所需的重要信息。这是情报的运作方式，而不是我们现在施行的执行情报。在你与我们的一些人员交谈之前，他已经介绍了自己是一名决策支持人员。在那些日子里，你几乎不认识他们。”

Stan-Labo said he was at a loss as to why security agencies do not have personnel embedded in those communities already. While asking what it required to employ and train people for this purpose, he challenged government to rise to the manpower challenge.

斯坦·拉博（Stan-Labo）说，他不明白为什么安全机构还没有在这些社区部署人员。在询问为此目的雇佣和培训人员需要什么时，他向政府提出挑战，要求政府应对人力资源的挑战。

Stressing the seriousness of the challenge, he canvassed for an executive order from the political leadership for the nation to overcome manpower issues in the security sector.

他强调了这一挑战的严重性，争取政治领导层为国家颁发行政命令，以解决安全部门的人力问题。

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“Or are there ulterior motives for making sure that the security sector is starved of manpower such that certain lines of action cannot be carried out. Some of us are beginning to read meanings to this disposition by the federal government. If we can bring out N219b to feed school children even when they were not in session, and when education budget is only N109b, how come we cannot bring out money and recruit people into the security sector?

“还是有别有用心的动机来确保安全部门缺乏人力，以至于某些行动无法实施。我们中的一些人开始解读联邦政府对这种处置的意义。当在校儿童不在上课时，我们为他们提供了2190亿尼日利亚奈拉。但当教育预算只有1090亿尼日利亚奈拉时，为什么我们不能拿出资金来招募人员进入安全部门？

“Something is just wrong with us. Will power is lacking; interpretation of the realities on ground is blurred by all sorts of sentiments, ranging from ethnicity to religion. Let 2023 just come and let us see if God would give us a leader who would be ready to bail this country out. We wasted eight years under President Goodluck Jonathan, we have wasted another seven under President Muhammadu Buhari. It is even far worse under the current administration. One expected that Nigeria would fare better in terms of security under a retired General but it has been unfortunate. Great nations that fought wars turned to their generals when they were challenged and they were rescued with those generals as presidents. In our case, President Buhari has not just been disappointing, he is a total failure. The little reputation he had before becoming president has been marred.

“我们有点不对劲。缺乏意志力；从种族到宗教的各种情绪模糊了对现实的解释。让2023年到来吧，让我们看看上帝是否会给我们一位准备好拯救这个国家的领导人。我们在古德勒克·乔纳森总统的领导下浪费了八年，在穆罕默德·布总统的领导下又浪费了七年。”在现任政府的领导下，情况甚至更糟。有人预计，在一位退休将军的领导下，尼日利亚的安全状况会更好，但这是不幸的。那些打过仗的大国在受到挑战时求助于他们的将领，他们在这些将领担任总统的情况下获救。就我们而言，布哈里总统不仅令人失望，他是一个彻底的失败者。他在成为总统之前微薄的声誉就已经受损。

“We bought 12 Tucanos, where are they? They are busy gathering dust instead of pursuing terrorists in the forests. I expected that by now, each of the Tucanos would be making 60 turn-around of bombings every week. By the time 12 Tucanos are making 60 by 12 bombings of every nooks and cranny where the bandits are, within three months, we would have been done with the war. But when we have other ulterior motives, this is what we would have to contend with. The military has what it takes in terms of capability. The airpower we have is also superior to what the enemy has. It is the willpower that is lacking. Government must take a decision to get this war done with,” Stan-Labo said.

“我们买了12辆图卡诺，他们在哪里？他们忙于收集灰尘，而不是在森林里追捕恐怖分子。我期望到现在，每辆图卡诺每周都会进行60次轰炸。到12辆图卡诺对强盗所在的每个角落和缝隙进行60次到12次轰炸的时候，在三个月内，我们已经结束了战争。但当我们有其他动机时，这是我们必须抗争的。军队有能力。我们的空中力量也比敌人的强。缺乏的是意志力。政府必须做出决定，结束这场战争，”斯坦·拉博说。

Former intelligence analyst with the United States Air Force, Tanwa Ashiru, however, observed that from information available, there was adequate intelligence about the Kaduna attacks, but the intelligence failed because the information was mishandled.

然而，美国空军前情报分析员田瓦阿什鲁（Tanwa Ashiru）观察到，从现有信息来看，关于卡杜纳袭击事件有足够的情报，但由于信息处理不当，情报失败。

She declared that majority of the problems the nation had at the moment stemmed from “taking little to no action on threats to human life.

她宣称，该国目前的大多数问题都源于“对人类生命的威胁几乎不采取行动”。

“Information and the subsequent intelligence derived must be acted on swiftly, especially when there is threat to human life. But it seems the intelligence agencies are swifter to act on intelligence that are a perceived threat to the entity of Nigeria than direct threats to human lives,” she said.

她说：“信息和随后获得的情报必须迅速采取行动，特别是在对人的生命构成威胁的情况下。但是，情报机构似乎更快对威胁尼日利亚实体的情报采取行动。而不是直接威胁人的生命的情报”。

Suggesting ways of stopping the recurring attacks, Ashiru, who provides defense, intelligence and security solutions as chief executive of Bulwark Intelligence, stressed that intelligence agencies must go out of their way to illustrate the intelligence and the threat of inaction more convincingly to powers-that-be.

作为提供国防、情报和安全解决方案的堡垒情报（Bulwark Intelligence）的首席执行官，阿什鲁（Ashiru）在建议如何阻止反复发生的攻击时强调，情报机构必须不遗余力地向当权者更令人信服地展示情报以及不作为的威胁。

She added that the agencies must also provide a well thought out action plan that can be taken to mitigate the immediate and longer-term risks.

她补充说，这些机构还必须提供一个经过深思熟虑的行动计划，以减轻眼前和长期的风险。

Ashiru also bemoaned the poor collaboration among security agencies, noting that the country had finally reached a stage where the lack of adequate collaboration is directly affecting the safety and security of the lives of the citizens.

阿什鲁（Ashiru）还对安全机构之间缺乏合作表示遗憾，指出该国已经最终达到了一个缺乏足够的合作直接影响到公民生命安全的阶段。

She said, “The adversary has evolved to a level where the response from the government security forces requires intentional coordination. Much of the internal security effort is being lopsidedly placed primarily on the military. But involving the military increases collateral damage and often exacerbates the problem. A number of criminals often trace their initial reason for joining these criminal groups to violence from the military or other law enforcement, which personally affected their lives. ”

她说“对手已经发展到需要政府安全力量作出有目的性协调的程度。许多内部安全工作大多被片面地放在军队身上。但军队的参与增加了附带损害，往往加剧了问题。许多罪犯加入这些犯罪集团的最初原因，都可以追溯到来自军队或其他执法部门的暴力，这些暴力影响了他们的生活。”

“The Police need to step up their role in internal security. They are supposed to have good relations with the local communities and gain their trust, working with them to root out criminals. But this too is lacking. Border security has a huge role to play as well in preventing the transnational flow of fighters and weapons that has brought us to this point.”

“警方需要加强其在国内安全方面的作用。他们应该与当地社区保持良好关系，赢得他们的信任，与他们合作根除犯罪。战斗人员和武器的跨国流动导致了这一局面，而边境安全在防止这方面，可以发挥巨大作用。

“The defense, intelligence and various law enforcement agencies will need to put their differences aside and better collaborate for Nigeria to see results.”

“国防、情报和各种执法机构需要搁置分歧，更好地合作，让尼日利亚看到结果。”

Ashiru’s position on collaboration was echoed by Captain Umar Babangida Aliyu (rtd.), a former military intelligence officer and Chief Executive of Goldwater and Riversand Consults, who said the nation needed to revamp and reinvigorate other arms of security service to complement what the army was doing.

前军事情报官员兼戈德沃特和里弗桑德咨询公司的首席执行官奥马尔·巴班吉达·阿利尤（Urar Babangida Aliyu）上尉（rtd.）赞同阿什鲁（Ashiru）对合作的立场，他表示国家需要改革和振兴其他安全部门，以补充军队正在做的事情。

Aliyu noted that, as seen in recent attacks, the Armed Forces, particularly the army, have been spread thin. “The Armed Forces are probably doing the job of the DSS. Our soldiers are not just being killed, they are dying everyday because the Police, Civil Defense and the multitude of other security and law enforcement agencies are not measuring up. Otherwise, we would not see almost back-to-back consistent slaughter of soldiers. It’s unfortunate.”

阿利尤（Aliyu）指出，正如在最近的袭击中所看到的那样，武装力量，特别是军队，已经非常分散。“武装部队可能正在做决策支持系统的工作。我们的士兵不仅被杀，他们每天都在死亡，因为警察、民防和其他众多安全、执法机构没有达到标准。否则，我们不会看到几乎连续不断地屠杀士兵。这是不幸的。”

He stressed that Nigeria was not getting the desired results in the terrorism fight because one security agency seems to be doing the role of all other agencies.

他强调，尼日利亚在反恐斗争中没有取得预期的结果，因为一个安全机构似乎在扮演所有其他机构的角色。

“The real challenge today is not about our army not being capable but about the army battling alone. There must be the DSS counter-terrorism component and the civil defense component. Even religious leaders and traditional rulers have roles to play. But in this particular situation, other security agencies have to come to the table. We must challenge other agencies if we are to win this battle. The bandits are exploiting the fact that our army seems to be the only arm running helter-skelter to combat. Fighting terrorism should not be left to the army alone, it has other components that the other agencies should attend to” he said.

“今天真正的挑战不是我们的军队没有能力，而是军队独自作战。必须有决策支持系统反恐部分和民防部分。即使是宗教领袖和传统统治者也可以发挥作用。但在这种特殊情况下，其他安全机构必须站出来。如果我们要赢得这场战斗，我们必须挑战其他机构。我们的军队似乎是唯一一支孤军奋战的力量，土匪们正在利用这一事实。打击恐怖主义不应该只由军队来完成，它还有其他的组成部分，在这些组成部分中其他机构也应该参与。”他说。

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