Inside History's Biggest Counterterrorism Probe

Countering terrorism often requires a bit of good fortune for law enforcement and intelligence officers, combined with bad luck on the part of the terrorists. In fact, it is widely-known in the world of counterterrorism professionals that terrorists defeat themselves far more often than some experts would like to admit. Furthermore, terrorist networks have inherent vulnerabilities that can be exploited as part of an effective counterterrorism strategy. Indeed, the efforts of a terrorist network can be undone by a lack of finances, trust, discipline, strategic direction and for many other reasons. Sometimes shoddy training (and incompetent trainees) are responsible for a lot of mistakes, misadventures, and failures in the world of terrorism. But while the media (along with Hollywood movies and television shows) have often provided a frightening depiction of terrorists as brilliant evil masterminds, the public is far less familiar with the ordinary, mundane foot soldier whose fallibility, ad-hoc decision-making and misguided beliefs have contributed to the failure of a terrorist plot.