Exercise:

I as the Commander have a Goal. To determine the Threat capability of the enemy. To this end I define the mission as explicitly as possible. Thereafter I set down the PIRs. At the same time the HUMINT resources I can spare are allocated tasks to collect information after my planning team in concert with the collection manager sets up cells each catering to certain IRs broken further into several Sirs. The teams of HUMINT and TACHUMINT are guided, controlled and overseen by the OMT, HAC….

Goals: We need to determine the intent of the enemy (threat) ,as formulated by the command (top hierarchy whose identity we need to determine),its strength, disposition and capabilities and all the possible courses of action, the most likely course of action and the most dangerous course of action.

PIRs: What are the intentions of the enemy and is it capable of carrying out the threat?

TASK:  Each team derived from each cell will consider all factors and generate the intelligence requirements. They will then task themselves with identifying all indicators that support or deny these intelligence requirements

 

A. We can create a basic intelligence team structure with the GOALS:  

1. To identify the enemy top-tier officials

2. The enemy intent (current tactical goals and strategic goals)

3. The strength, disposition, capabilities assets, and organization structure of the enemy.

4. Organizations TO&E

5. The most likely COA and the most dangerous COA.

B. From the above we identify our primary intelligence requirement/s:

The immediate threat posed by the enemy. What are the goals of the adversary?  What’s he trying to accomplish; what’s his intent?  Answer what he’s doing today in order to answer what he’s going to do tomorrow and beyond. 

C. Next we create teams, say 2-3 manned teams, each team assigned a separate task of collection. The team leader should exhort his members that given the intelligence requirement by HQ they should strive to generate further IR based on the information available and during collection as new information may require further probing and exploration. Members and team leader should be proactive. Intelligence too is both reactive and proactive. An indicator associated with an IR propels the agent to look for corroborating information--that’s reactive. Sometimes we are totally unaware of the unknown. Well the intelligence agent can have an informant/source network in place which constantly looks for say enemy movements or any change in enemy positions—which on first sight can be a normal movement/displacement but on further probing reveals an offensive intent. To this end the intelligence agent needs to have a proactive mindset, always curious, probing and exploratory.

We also set up covert or overt civilian collection units whose members are either having access to physical addresses frequented or inhabited by the enemy or are geo-located in close proximity to the latter.

Our teams are exhorted to resort to open intelligence frequently OSINT such as any news/enemy propaganda/private and government discussion boards, analyses/TV panel discussions on current situations with reference to the disturbing elements posted on the web, in dailies, or aired on radio / tv programmes.It should be borne in mind that globally 90% useful intelligence is collected from OSINT sources and the remaining from ISR platforms.

Our teams can be based on the following factors – ATTENTION AREAS:

Ø      Organization,Composition,Disposition,Strength (the command structure and organisation of headquarters and subunits, geographical locations of unit headquarters and subunits, Strength expressed in units and weight of fire delivered by its weapon systems)

Ø      Leadership

Ø      Intent

Ø      Weaponry and Equipments

Ø      Capabilities / Combat effectiveness

§         TTPs—historical in the concerned area of operations and area of interest.( Tactics used by the enemy unit and Miscellaneous data related to specific task, mission or operations…this will help in determining enemys most likely course of action. Unit history used to judge expected performance based on its past performance)

 

Ø      Threat ranking-by violence or activity

Ø      Enemy propaganda

Ø      Recent incidents of violence irrespective of sporadic or concerted nature

Ø      Local community and political support

Ø      Other friendly groups / criminal gangs sympathetic to enemy causes or having same ideology/political goals

Ø      Logistics

 

Keeping the above factors in perspective we can create cells comprising of HUMINT collectors (and also admixture of HUMINT/CI , TACHUMINT—when information of CI Interest is emerges when the HUMINT collector is conducting questioning , he will transfer the source to the CI team).These cells may be:

v     Leadership Cell

v     Enemy units cell

v     Strategic Cell

v     Threat Cell

v     TO&E Cell

Each team cell will generate its intelligence requirements. These requirements are all predicated by the Commanders PIRs.SIRs or sets of SIRs corresponding to each IR are developed, keeping in view the indicators.Therafter tasking begins.

The current teams are C2, Strategic, Lower HQs and Units, TO&E AND THREATS.

 

C2 Cell – The enemy organization leadership formulates the strategy and hence the individual leadership personalities, their affiliations, intent, movements, social contacts etc should be gauged accurately by identifying the indicators so as to defeat their ongoing or future deliberate operations. The hierarchy should be determined which will give us an idea of the functions and span of control of each level. Thus the C2 cell will focus on the command and control of the organization.

Strategic Cell: Decides on the overall strategy. Is composed of the Command staff, planning, logistics, operations and intelligence/CI advisors.

Lower HQs and Units cell – The organizations middle and lower level management is composed of lower HQs/Section HQs and units. The capabilities of these should be determined and it should be assessed properly as to which deptt or unit has a significant part in the current operations against our forces and thus we can assign a priority ranking. This ranking can be based on the threat potential or activity predicated by the overall intent of the organization which has prompted it to conduct current operations. That is to say those HQs and units should be prioritized as per their threat capabilities and activities which have a direct bearing in the offensive operations..  Triage all these HQs and units and feed the report to the TO&E cell.

 

TO&E cell – The TO&E cell will evaluate the report submitted by the Chapter cell. It will evaluate the strength, assets and activities and draft a table of organization and equipment.

Threat cell: The task of this cell is to identify all the possible courses of action to be undertaken by the enemy and distill them to infer the most likely and most dangerous course/s of actions. The threat cell will consider all the inputs from the other cells. In addition it will undertake an intelligence preparation of the battledfield.It will study the past violent behavior of the enemy, take cognizance of its intent/s, capabilities, dispositions, strengths, affiliations with other support elements such as criminal enterprises, terrorists and create intelligence requirements, prioritized which will lead to tasking of its operatives to identify the indicators supporting or denying these threat activities.

 

COLLECTION SUMMARY

              Assessment of threat capabilities, operations and, current and expected threat actions across ROMO to provide the commander with an assessment for the development and execution of countermeasures.

           

             Intent of threat elements.

 

             Associations of threat elements.

 

             Location of potential threat attack and defense operations.

 

             Recommend the preferred friendly C2 for an enemy attack.

 

            Potential attack and defense means.

 

             Anticipated times for attack.

 

             Likely locations of threat listening post/observation post.

 

            Probable post attack/defense escape routes.

 

            Likely threat IED techniques.

 

a.       Predicted IED detonation means.

 

b.      Predicted IED timing (day versus night, day of week).

 

c.       Predicted IED infiltration routes, emplacement.

 

d.      IED ex-filtration route for insurgents.

 

e.       Munitions storage (areas or locations).

 

f.        IED and other munitions production facilities.

 

g.       Preferred supplementary or complementary operations (small arms to kill, small arms fire to capture, secondary).

 

h.       Recommend the preferred friendly counter ISR and EW technologies.

 

i.         Key threat indirect fire attack features.

 

      

METHODOLOGY OF INTELLIGENCE COLLECTION:

The commander, the staff, and the higher and lower headquarters across the depth and width of the battlefield must coordinate with the CM section while formulating plans for future operations and to support ongoing missions. Variations in enemy actions or changes in perception of the enemy’s movements give rise to new sets of intelligence requirements and the CM section should take this into account. The battlefield is an area of high fluidity and hence changes must be expected and Requirements Management must be flexible enough to incorporate these changes.

The two most critical steps in collection management is identifying and prioritizing the intelligence requirements. To this end 6 areas of interest must be considered and they are force protection, situation development,targeting,battle damage assessment BDA,indications and warning and IPB.The intelligence requirements stems from these areas and all of the competing requirements needs to be consolidated,. Thereafter the collection plan is created and the scarce IEW resources are tasked more efficiently.

 

Requirements Management, Mission Management and Asset Management constitute the Collection Management process. They are treated separately but together constitute integrated operations as a whole.

The six steps in the CM process are:

Ø      Develop Requirements,

Ø      Develop a Collection Plan,

Ø      Task/Request Collection,

Ø      Disseminate,

Ø      Evaluate Reporting,

Ø      Update Collection Planning.

 

The various activities inherent in these steps need to be synchronized and placed under constant review.

While devising the Collection plan, the intelligence officer in charge of designing the plan (henceforth known as Collection Manager CM) takes into account the following:

Ø      Commanders Priority Intelligence Requirements

Ø      Low Priority Intelligence Requirements

Ø      Requests from subordinate units,

Ø      Taskings from higher HQ’s

Ø      Intelligence requirements for targeting purposes

Now, he prioritizes these keeping in mind the Commands intelligence needs and the commanders priority intelligence needs.

When BICCE study was initially conducted with the development of possible enemy COAs, the intelligence analyst attempts to develop all indicators of these COAs.(Indicators are those details of enemy action/inaction that may suggest an enemy COA.

COLLECTION FORMAT

There are two collection plans. One designed for conventional battlefield operations whereas the other caters to a LIC environment.LIC battlefield operations tend to be dispersed. The PIR and IR’s are highly diverse and collection becomes a tough task.

In the latter case the following steps are followed:

Ø      List the PIRs and IRs, prioritize them and enumerate them using control numbers and alphabets. This helps in prioritization.

Ø      Now ascertain the indicators

Ø      Determine potential indicators-prioritize those that will answer the PIR and IR.

Ø      Delete all indicators that do not answer the intelligence requirements.

Ø      Develop specific intelligence requirements. These are the requirements as stated by the commander, prioritized and general, broken down into manageable specific requirements. A PIR may have several specific intelligence requirements.

Ø      Analyze these SIRs and the target characteristics keeping all the indicators in perspective.

Ø      Finally prioritize the SIRs and determine the suitable collection discipline/platform/agency keeping its capabilities, limitations, backlog of collection tasking allotted to it and whether adjacent units, lower units are also using it.

Ø      Prepare the tasking list by creating a prioritized SIR list and deploy the collectors.

Ø     

Note:

1. Intelligence should be timely, accurate, predictive and specific. The last term is very important especially in the case when actionable intelligence is needed. The HUMINT agent reports:

·         Observed movement of Bodo insurgents in NAI 6.

·         Observed that they are moving south towards the rice fields near the Tarmung village

Now these two reports are timely as they are happening right now, predictive as we know they are moving south towards the rice fields near an identified village. But what about specificity. What is the strength of the insurgents in terms of manpower? How many of them? Any idea how heavily are they armed and what weapons are they carrying? Do they possess mortars, bazookas, rocket launchers (shoulder mounted)? Where are they exactly in named area of interest 6? Whenever you report keeping the factors Size, Activity, Location and Time in perspective, you need to be as specific as possible. That way we can not only gauge their exact intentions and courses of actions but also formulate our course of action, as we can now pin-point them.

Enemy Capabilities and Limitations can be mnemonic zed with DRAW-D, Defence, Reinforce, Attack, Withdraw and Delay. The Order of Battle and Table of Organization and Equipment (ORBAT and TO&E) are two areas intelligence must dwell upon throroughly.The ORBAT refers to the enemy organizations disposition, capabilities assets and composition whereas TO&E refers to its organization table of units and associated equipment. Thus the Commander is made aware with this strength, disposition, organizational and capabilities brief of the enemy.

Tasking is meted out considering:

Type of collection platform to be used. Here it’s HUMINT

Availability of HUMINT resources. It could well be resources are very limited. Maybe time is of essence. It could well be that actionable intelligence is required fast and there is no room to send the collected information up the chain for collation, processing and dissemination to targeting platforms by the end-users—here the Commander. This time constraint may mean we have the analytical element right at boot-level, who will be a part of the collection team. This will cut down on the time involved in the intelligence cycle from collection to dissemination. Moreover availability of HUMINT resources also means the Commander has other priorities with other tactical missions or maybe a part of the HUMINT resources are away accompanying patrols to get intelligence from neighbourhoods,civilians etc.So availability of resources is a criteria to be taken into account.

 

COMMAND AND CONTROL

HUMINT COMMAND AND CONTROL

Commanders that conduct HUMINT operations take responsibility for:

ü      Constituting task organizations

ü      Assigning missions

ü      Execution of the mission

ü      Mission accomplishment

ü      Designating the AO for each mission tasking.

ü      Commanders must ensure mission accomplishment by optimally allocating resources and logistics to support HUMINT operations,keeping in mind the constraints and time.The Commander should make adequate arrangements of training of his MI unit personnel.There should also be cross training of HUMINT operators and HUMINT applications personnel.Each should know the others method of operation.Thus he can ensure the operational readiness of his personnel.The Commander analyses higher headquarters intelligence requirement,requests for information from adjacent and subordinate units,tasks his organization,states the mission,tasks the HUMINT collectors,executes the mission,accomplishes it and conducts a post operation review,manages any discrepancies or gaps in intelligence(maybe again tasking his men).He is accountable to  and responsible for all HUMINT activities and should see that they confirm to doctrinal guidelines.At this juncture he should fully liaise with the technical control team and OMT. He issues mission orders to subordinate unit commanders , being as deatailed as possible and giving as much time as can be allowed.

 

Commanders must:

ü      Must understand and know the enemy, his organization, his ISR capability, his counter-ISR capabilities, his threat platforms, and the terrain over which it exercises control and how the terrain can be an enabler for his HUMINT/C-HUMINT operations.

ü      As regarding his own HUMINT units he should understand the constraints, technical and operational, under which they function

ü      Should ensure synchronization of operations with intelligence

ü      Should ensure the best training of all personnel in his units

ü      Optimum reconnaissance and surveillance in close co-ordination with higher HQ, adjacent units, subordinate units and staff is very important--he should implement this.

ü      Should keep higher HQ informed of manpower, equipment, logistical and operational updates, any shortcomings, requirements or any enhancements required. Advises higher HQ of capabilities and limitations of his HUMINT assets.

ü      Should continually supervise each and every operation, create a feedback system and use the feeds to ensure high quality and technical control of both the operations and HUMINT products.

ü      Ensures personnel are working within legal, regulatory, and policy guideline.

 

C2

 

We must have a command and control structure to properly utilize the intelligence resources and operations. The commander can then exercise control over the subordinate units and operations. He can establish the degree of control and authority of subordinate commands. Relationships among the subordinate units and adjacent units can be smoothly managed if a clean command and support relationship exists. Thus the subordinate units and supporting units can have well defined responsibilities and authorizations. Thus the commander designates command and support relationships within his span of authority and all these subordinate commands and support units go hand in hand to decide on schemes of maneuver and operations progress. Thus all the forces under the parent commands tactical control receive the best guidance towards mission success. Accountability will also be enforced properly. In intelligence operations technical control is of importance. Technical control is strictly not a command and control function but  it is a control function ensuring that adherence to existing policies,regulations.TTPs are maintained and provides for technical control of MI operations. Establishing clean command and support relationships is fundamental in organizing for all operations. These relationships can achieve clear responsibilities and authorities among subordinate and supporting units.

We must have a command and control setup which will incorporate management, analysis and control of all-source intelligence, and technical control of the operations of the respective intelligence disciplines. Thus we will have a HQ with 2 section HQ’s under its control. Communications would come directly under HQ purview. One section HQ will look after the All-source production team , collection management team, target nomination team, dissemination team and operational management team. The other section HQ will be the technical control   element looking after the HUMINT, CI, SIGINT and IMINT Teams.

The All-source production team will have a HUMINT platoon, a CI platoon or a combination of the two—a Tactical HUMINT platoon and if assets are available an IMINT team. The Tactical HUMINT Platoon can have a HQ designated authority, a HUMINT Control team, three HUMINT Teams and one CI Team. The CI team may be further divided into 2 teams composed of 2 operatives each. Mission requirements define size and composition which can vary from the stated composition. The CI team will conduct CI Investigations, assessments and C-HUMINT ops but may not engage in C-SIGINT or C-IMINT as it hasn’t any organic capability.

Now the tasking is assigned to each team. That is to say the IR for each team.

TASKING EXERCISE

Requirements are primary and secondary.

Primary requirements. For instance, our PIRs and IRs might look something like this:

PIR 1: What threats exist in our AO?

PIR 2: What threat activities occur in our AO?

PIR 3: What targets are the threats likely to attack?

IR 1: Define the threat operational tempo.

IR 2: What is the strength and disposition of the insurgent group?

IR 3: Identify the leadership of the insurgent group.

IR 4: Identify the facilitation/logistical networks of the insurgent group.

IR 5: What locations are associated with the insurgent group.

So on and so forth.  These are our requirements that we must answer through collection, whether it be Human Intelligence (HUMINT – including surveillance and reconnaissance) or Open Source Intelligence (OSINT), or whatever other means are available.

*Some guidelines for TACTICAL QUESTIONING for the created unit personnel:

 *Tactical questioning.

Generally soldiers conduct two types of collection--passive and active. On the whole soldiers should practice the former generally when they are not asked to look for prioritized information..which are generally the domain of trained collectors, say HUMINT specialists(active collection).Passive collection should be practiced by each and every soldier if time allows or opportunity presents itself--say a casual query to a local , or elicitation or during patrolling when you project a friendly attitude in the local community and during conversation you glean information of tactical value.

Active collection:-During tactical operations in a COIN environment for example, actionable intelligence and follow-on missions to kill/capture is depend a great deal on the soldier-on-the-ground--the tactical questioning ability of the latter. In such operations, say after a fire-fight, once the operation is over and the prisoners taken and the area secured, the local populace is rounded up and questioned for further leads or to identify any insurgent in hiding among the populace by observing his demeanor on questioning. In yet another scenario, say post-IED blast, again the locals can be questioned. Clues may surface, say there was this stranger who had visited the area just prior to the blast, wearing such and such clothes and travelling on a motorcycle with license plate number of a different city. Maybe that person is still in the village. He is picked up, interrogated and a wealth of information extracted which could be valuable actionable intelligence, driving further operations. In other instances of tactical questioning, routine patrolling to villages or areas of interest near the military area can yield good intelligence after contact is established with the local population. They might offer information on the daily activities of suspects and their possible whereabouts.

The intelligence unit which was just set up has as its main control center the ACE. The ACE hands out the tasks to the various specialized personnel to conduct active collection operations--tactical querstioning,interrogation,debriefing,interviewing and DOCEX.Specialised personnel are needed because the average soldier will not be able to probe with specially designed questions or have a technical mindset characteristic of HUMINT/CI agents.

Some steps for TQ:

Plan in advance. For that you need to know the intelligence requirements as laid down by the collection manager or ACE. The scenario can be ascertaining certain facts of the enemy from a local: What did he exactly see? Whom did he see? Does he know him or is he a stranger? What was he wearing? Anything out of the ordinary in his attire? Was it uniform-like? Was he dressed in expensive outfit? Did it look like his clothes were concealing weapons? Maybe his jacket was too heavy--bomb strapped inside to his body? Which way did he go? Other men were there with him? This way you should probe him--always open-ended questions instead of yes/no questions.

Note a difference here. We are simply questioning him directly instead of first planning an approach like the interrogator. In certain situations time is of essence. We need actionable intelligence straightaway. As the insurgent group needs to be dealt with immediately and he/they are nearby with intent to mount an attack on our forces in the immediate future. And they sometimes take sanctuary in this village by mixing with the crowd or maybe they this village is a permanent node in their passage route to their safe havens. Tactical questioning is a direct approach.

 

We can set templates for tactical questioning. That is a typical list of questions fitting a typical scenario. So we brainstorm several scenarios beforehand and have a good list of questions. Brainstorming beforehand means much before any imminent operation, not that we have need for actionable intelligence in 24 hours, and we set down to brainstorm questions. The templates are the task of the research people at the ACE.

Going by ACE requirements--the intelligence requirements--can prove to be a very good tactical questioning operation. This is where technical control becomes important. In tactical questioning one should adhere to ACE requirements and question directly, open-endedly.The ACE might be needing a composition, strength and disposition report of the insurgents. Who do you think was the leader of that suspicious group you saw in so and so place? How many of them were there? There were women; we have information. Now how many women were there with them? Were they armed? Do you have any idea about the make of weapons? Fine you don’t know how did the weapons look like? Rifle-type or is it like this I am carrying? Or is it like the one you see with the local police? Do you have any idea where they can get accommodation? Anyone having a place of stay here who usually gives it out only to people from outside your area?

The ACE might be looking for possible targets of attack by the insurgents. This is a way of predicting future attacks by analyzing soft targets. Well do you think the religious structure will be bombed by the insurgent/terrorist? If so, why? You are the better judge, aren’t there any other more important possible targets, the bombing of which can cause good loss in life and more important than that cause widespread panic and media attention? And so on.

During the course of tactical questioning often the collector lands up with sources that have good placement and access to the required information. The collector refers his data to the ACE who register his name and bio in the source database and also update the target folder with this particular source giving information on a particular target.