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Welcome to the watch floor. I'm Sarah Adams. When people think of terrorism, dramatic images come to mind. Explosions, gunfire and chaos. But most terrorist attacks don't begin with violence. They begin with behaviors. Small decisions, subtle movements, patterns of activity that appear perfectly normal at first glance. These are the signs most people miss in the lead up to an attack. I want to walk through real world examples and then show you how it might look right here on U.S. soil. Because terrorism doesn't announce itself, it leaves footprints. And the more people out in the public that can recognize these footprints, the better chance we have of stopping an attack before it even begins. Before an attack, terrorists almost always observe and then map their targets. They study patterns, they look at the entrances, they look at the exits, they look at the security, any sort of flows in the area of persons, traffic, law enforcement, etc. Right. This is called reconnaissance. So a really great global example is the 2006 Transatlantic Plan. Again, this is the liquid bomb plot that was luckily thwarted and saved thousands of lives, but it's why we have the little three ounce liquids when we go into the airport. Well, for that plot, the terrorists did book flights and even hotel visits so they could watch the procedures around the airlines. What happens if there is some sort of security issue, how the response looks. And even just last year here in the United States, in Pennsylvania, we had a issue where there were some suspicious individual wanting to rent a hotel room. And when they went to book it, they said, oh, we want to make sure our room can clearly see the Runway. And it really freaked out the hotel staff. And they didn't even let them rent a room at all. So this is an important thing you watch for. It seems so simple, but when it feels off to you, it likely is. Another great example was in 2019 during the Sri Lankan Easter bombings. So in this case, the attackers visited a number of churches and hotels repeatedly to look at who was coming and going. But most importantly, when was attendance the highest? We've had multiple, I mean, dozens upon dozens at this point, probably I'd say over 50, which I know sounds scary. Of incidents like this in the United States in the last two years, where individuals have gone into churches and at times schools, attached to churches, and looked at things like attendance, asked strange questions in churches like, do you live stream? Again, these things add up, right? This is a strange pattern of behavior. You know, we need to note it and then watch for other things. These individuals going into churches also looked a lot at the exits and entrances. They asked questions about security. And the crazy part is some didn't even stay for the services and then they never came back. Again, very concerning. 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For a limited time, our listeners get 50% off for life, plus free shipping and three free gifts when they go to MengotoMars.com it's literally the perfect way to continue the gains that you kicked off at the start of New Year's. Again, that's men. G o t o mars.com to get your 50% off and your three free gifts. And at checkout, let them know the watch floor sent you Another great example was in 2016 in Nice. Right. In France, when we had the truck attack. So the attackers drove the parade route multiple times to obviously review traffic, see where there could be, you know, ingress and egress. Look where police officers were kind of congregating and setting up their posts. You know, very important to carry it on attack like that. So here in the US think if you're in some big airport, like one of the major hubs, let's be JFK or lax, and you see someone photographing security, that's weird. I mean, I know now all the press is doing it because we have three hour wait at tsa. So it is a little different now and it's going to be a little more complicated. But it is strange for anyone to be videoing or, or filming or taping anything in tsa. Right. The majority of us get in and we want to get out as soon as possible. We aren't going to take a picture to remember our time at the security checkout line. Now we're going to move on to the concept that terrorists, of course, practice parts of the attack before it occurs. This is famously called dry run. So they might approach entry points, they might time the peak moments of a crowd, like at a concert or a sporting event. They might check reactions to different security issues going on. Like, let's say if there's a swatting event in a hospital, well, what did that look like? How did law enforcement respond to that? So all these things are actually going on all the time and we really don't notice this. And the terrorists, as you can imagine, get a lot of information from these dry runs. But it also gives us an opportunity to see something very early in the planning stages and then hopefully get law enforcement involved and get ahead of it. So let's walk through a few examples. So In Paris in 2015, attackers did a lot of rehearsals where they would move between like cafes and the baudicle on theater. They did that because they wanted to note how they were going to be able to move through crowds, but also why they were moving, where security was usually posted or if security was roving, how did that look, how were there shifts, which paths did they take? Right. It's a lot of useful information to know, especially if you want to prolong a terrorist attack. Another great example, and we always bring up Mumbai 2008, because a terrorist spend a lot of time studying it, is that operatives walk through the hotels and the rail station and again, they were checking first off, like when security would come in and when shift changes would be and what that would look like. Also how strong or weak the security was. Like Nataj Mahal Hotel. Like what can we get away with and when can we get away with it? Lastly, with the Boston marathon bombing in 2013, the brothers actually like jogged and ran along multiple routes of the race. It's like they almost integrated themselves into being like normal faces and involved in the normal activity that just occurs in daily life around the race. So it's very smart how these rehearsals reversals occur unless you really thought it through. Like the brothers running, which is pretty smart, don't always look like normal behavior. And we have to remember that and watch for those type of things. So if we have someone going in and out over and over of a venue entrance, but they never go all the way in, that's concerning. Another thing is if they're just hanging out and watching the entry and exit or crowd flows of any sort of thing, let's say it's a concert entrance, let's say it's an entrance to a college football game. It could just be the entrance to go down in the subway. Just standing there and constantly observing the behaviors and not being law enforcement or security is a very strange situation. Another thing is if people go through a checkpoint or security and then they leave and they come back through through security two or three times, like that is very rare. Unless it's just this one off place that you can't smoke anywhere inside and these are smokers coming out. But who is going to go through security procedures multiple times? Like most people don't even want to go through it even one time. So it is something again, you know, to watch for. And if you see something, of course, say something. A lot of people confuse dry runs. They assume it's the last step before an attack. But lots of times the dry runs we're talking about help narrow down what will be the best target and when it will be the best time to target that. So now the terrorists did that. And so now we're at a point where they have decided here is the location that we think we can be most successful at, you know, during our attack. Obviously Shamsuddin Jabbar, you know, chose this post New Orleans situation and event, you know, kind of near Bourbon street. And he made that decision based on, as you can imagine, doing surveillance. So we have to remember there is time now usually before something happens, because now they zone in on that target. Now they need to know everything and make sure they missed nothing. And so they get Uber focused and they make sure, they know everything that can happen. They might spend more time at the location than previously because they were first just narrowing it down last time, and then they're going to make sure they spend more time on target. A really good example is Omar Mateen. A lot of people know he first chose his target to be Disney Springs, Downtown Disney. And so he went down there with his wife and they walked around and they spent a lot of time on target to determine where like Disney security personnel were, where larger crowds would kind of like congregate in the area. And the interesting thing is when he went back to carry out the attack at Disney Springs, it looked very different. When he went down kind of the steps from the parking area, there was a lot more security than when he spent time casing it. And it actually forced him to change targets. So that is one thing we have to keep in mind. Increases and changes in our posture and our security can also push a terrorist away from wanting to target locations we work at or we frequent or places of worship we go to. And we always want to be changing our security and mixing things up so we can throw them off as some real world examples. A great one was the Westgate mall attack in 2013 in Nairobi. So attackers would go into the mall and they would study the placement of security cameras and then what type of cameras they were, right? Could they do just a slight pan? Could they do like a 360 view? I mean, that's really important to know. They would pay attention, of course, to how like the security inside of the mall would do its rotations where there would be fixed security that didn't move at any time. And they spent months in advance doing this. And then of course also seeing how much the security even pays attention to customers, especially when the flows got a lot larger. Another great example is a 2006 London train bombings. We call this seven, seven. So the attacker spent a lot of time riding the trains and monitoring commuter patterns and then also paying attention to the station routes, especially making sure that, that they weren't adjusting or changing. Because as you know, when they wanted to set off the explosives, they wanted it to be as coordinated as possible. Any route that consistently had delays would make you not want to choose that routing because you wanted to get most attacks to occur at the same time. So now the terrorists, right, did their dry runs, they chose their target and now have learned everything about their target. So now we are getting very close to an attack. So what now occurs? Usually there's a change in the pattern of communications and this is where you'll hear terrorists go dark or they go off the radar. Usually it's really they're just switching to encrypted communications. But some of them go extreme and they'll delete their social media accounts. And that of course is a huge flag. So when they go dark, right, they're moving just to like a Signal or WhatsApp, those type of apps. And we've seen this again and again. It obviously just happened in October 7th. They use Telegram pretty heavily, you know, to coordinate and talk even in real time during the attacks. And then of course to do the pre planning. Then just this last November, you know, we had this Red Fort blast where like a dozen people were killed in India. And after the fact we found out the terrorists use Signal, WhatsApp and Session. If you don't know session, it's even a little more concerning because you don't have to give any sort of identifying characteristics. So like I don't have to give for example a phone number to make that account. Well, think of how much more difficult that is. Another thing is it is encrypted like all the other chats, but your chats are saved on, on your personal device. They're not going to some sort of cloud where someone can maybe access them and obviously provide it to authorities. So we have to keep in mind that the terrorists are getting smart in using platforms where they can hide more. Another really great example is terrorists use a lot of the gaming platforms because nobody is really searching on there looking for terrorist communications. And even then thinking you're playing Battlefield, I mean if you're just seeing these messages back and forth, they sound like messages that are part of your battle wherever you are. And I don't know, some Stan south of Russia, you're not going to assume it's for a plot that's going to kick off in like two days in the United States. So I just want you to keep in mind there are such easy ways to mask some of these discussions in the tools we use every day and even in the games that we play. Play. Now I did say something that I do think a lot of people are going to notice, right? The part where person may go black or disappear on social media. And this is important, if you see this sudden disappearance, if you see a person no longer showing up at work, I think that's a really great example. We even saw this with one of these Minnesota protesters, the one that ended up being killed. Right. First we hear he's a nurse. Then we find out he was Fired. He hasn't been at work in six months. His family was telling him you need to stop going to these protests every day. Right? You need to get back into your professional life. That is a huge change in behavior that people should pay attention to. And you really should see something, say something when you see someone devolving to something that can get a little more on the level of extremism. Now one piece we didn't talk about and it's very important because we like to talk about what you can visually see. But it's the fact that if terrorists are gonna carry an attack, they need supplies, right? They need materials, vehicles, weapons, supplies to make bombs. And they have to go out and get most of this or they have to traffic it in and there's still a movement and then they have to gather all these items in a location. Could be in a safe house, they might have to rent a warehouse, they might actually have to build bombs. That's going to need some sort of facility. So we have to keep that in mind. Some really great examples, again if we go back to Mumbai, they had to bring in firearms and GPS devices. They were hidden and they were moved strategically Back to the London 2006 liquid bomb plot. They went and bought the components they needed for the bombs in very small quantities so it wouldn't alert authorities. Another great example is the Paris and Brussels attacks from 2015 and 2016. They were taking weapons and transporting them across countries borders and then hiding them in safe houses. So it's not like they were hiding the weapons, right where they carried out the attack. They put them somewhere where they felt they could keep them hidden and safer. So they didn't put the weapons like in the middle of where they're going to carry out the attack. They moved them out to a safe house where they thought no one would pay attention and where they could keep them safe prior to carrying out an attack. You know, our last really important thing I want to talk about is like these micro signs that are often overlooked and I really want to spend some time talking through this because they're pre attack indicators that are a lot more subtle but we really get a lot more bang for the buck if you notice it because they'll look ordinary but they're not. So really great examples are like a person that goes up and they're consistently asking questions about security procedures, timing, access. A really great example of this was, and I'm not going to say exactly where it occurred, but there was a situation on a US flight in the last year and what happened is the captain said, everyone please be seated. We're going in for our final descent. So this is about the last 20 to 30 minutes of the flight. Flight. And so everyone sits down. And then a gentleman and he was Saudi gets up and he walks to the front of the plane and he starts asking questions, you know, to the flight crew, specifically to the flight attendant, saying, I want to meet the captain. Of course, the flight attendant said, you know, we're going in for departure. You know, you can't meet the captain. You need to take your seat. And he didn't want to sit right away. So to appease him, they said, can you just tell us the questions you have for the captain so we can get this moving? And so his questions for the captain were, how many flights does he take a day? Does he keep the same crew every day? A very strange thing. So of course, the captain found out about this when they landed the plane. They kept the cockpit locked so this individual couldn't get into there. And then, of course, the flight crew reported it. And as law enforcement blows a lot of things off, they're like, you're just being flirted with. Well, that's not flirtation. If I'm going to flirt with someone, I'm not going to ask when the captain is flying again. I'm going to ask when you're flying again. So just keeping in mind these things are happening and you can't just blow them off. You can't make an assumption about what someone is doing. You just need to say, this is strange. Let me report it. And then hopefully it'll get to the right people and experts who are smart enough to say, yeah, there is something off with what happened here. We brought this up, but I do think it's super important to cover. It's this photography in places that don't make sense. Right? Someone's taking pictures multiple times outside of a hospital. They're taking pictures of entrances at a school. I told you. They're taking pictures of security checkpoints. They're taking pictures of where badge readers are in Billings. Again, all these things make no sense sense. So anytime you see something like that, of course it's incredibly concerning and you need to report it. Especially if it's a facility you work in. You don't want this occurring. I remember in my last job, I was in a federal building, and you could go in this one level, and then it was all glass and you could see out. And so I walk out on it and there's a car sitting right in front of the building not moving. So it's sitting in a lane, it should be moving in. And it had one of those like cameras like Google Earth would use to record to put on map view. Okay. So I go down, I tell security, hey, this car is just sitting out here recording. And they didn't even notice it. And then they had to go out and have a discussion with them again. That's all of our jobs. If I would have just assumed security already went and talked to them and knew who they were and went on with my day, I made a mistake because when I found out they didn't, we had a problem. So you have to always get involved in these situations. Another thing we've talked about is any kind of lingering near entrances and exits. One of the most concerning thing is an individual who will follow another person in, but not badge. Right. This piggybacking, we just had it unfortunately at a school in Texas. Luckily there was a second layer of security and this individual didn't get in. We don't know what he was doing. He was like an Iraqi refugee. He had a weapon. He was wearing body armor. Very, very scary. But you don't want anyone hanging around these entrances who really shouldn't be there. And if someone keeps showing up and there's no real reason for them to be there, especially let's say it's a school and he doesn't have a kid there. Right. That needs to be reported immediately. We can't wait till when they try to gain access to this location. Another thing that I find interesting that terrorists do that none of us do, because everything now you can just click and get what you want is the studying of transportation schedules. So we of course can quickly get an alert that something's delayed to the terrorists. They have to know immediately what changes they can make if there's delays. So they can keep on track if there's an attack. Right. I brought this up recently. So if you have a metro and it's delayed, they need to know when the next metro leaves that they can jump on and keep their timing going. Obviously that's memorization and they got to spend a lot of time studying these routes and then taking them. And again, that's not something the rest of us do. If I take public transportation, there's usually a reason I'm going to work and then I'm coming home from work. So this is a slightly different pattern, a last one I want to bring up because it is not something a normal person to focus on. It's a person who is Looking at infrastructure, but it's not infrastructure that's pretty and art, like, I don't know, like the St. Louis arc, which isn't that pretty to begin with. But it's like the freeway or the exit ramps or like your electric grid area, port facilities where gas could be stored, those type of things. When someone's looking at them and paying attention to them and taking photos, or worse, like doing a photo when it's behind them. That's what I love. When you go across terrace pictures and they took photos at all this critical infrastructure and they put themselves in the photo. I don't know why they thought that would make it less strange, like, oh, this oil facility is behind me in my tourist photo. But anyway, all of that, as you can imagine, is also strange and needs to be reported. So terrorists don't, like, announce themselves and put out a headline prior to doing an attack. And in no universe are you going to know the exact time and place an attack occurs. Obviously, if law enforcement is going to get information with that much fidelity, they're likely going to hold, hopefully thwart the attack. So we have to be a part of the solution to get ahead of any terrorist planning on our soil. And we have senior leaders in our government being very clear that we have a lot of what they're calling sleeper cells. But we walk through today, these tariffs aren't sleeping. They're doing reconnaissance, they're doing dry runs, they're doing different surveillance, they're on encrypted communications apps, they're acquiring resources, they're making bombs, et cetera. Right. They are not sleeping. So they are in motion in doing activity while we're doing our everyday motions and activities. We need to be paying attention to, okay, what is normal in my environment, and, oh, this now is an outlier. It's not normal in our environment. And then we have to see something and say something. I know it can be like a cheeky kind of phrase, but it has proven to save lives. Any type of early warnings and indicators we can get ahead of time will save lives. Thanks for being here today on the watch floor.