Counter-terrorism

Counter-terrorism (also spelled counterterrorism) is the practices, tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, militaries, police departments and corporations adopt to prevent or in response to terrorist threats and/or acts, both real and imputed.

The tactic of terrorism is available to insurgents and governments. Not all insurgents use terror as a tactic, and some choose not to use it because other tactics work better for them in a particular context. Individuals, such as Timothy McVeigh, may also engage in terrorist acts such as the Oklahoma City bombing.

If the terrorism is part of a broader insurgency, counter-terrorism may also form a part of a counter-insurgency doctrine, but political, economic, and other measures may focus more on the insurgency than the specific acts of terror. Foreign internal defense (FID) is a term used by several countries for programs either to suppress insurgency, or reduce the conditions under which insurgency could develop.

Counter-terrorism includes both the detection of potential acts and the response to related events.

Anti-terrorism versus counter-terrorism
The concept of anti-terrorism emerges from a thorough examining of the concept of terrorism as well as an attempt to understand and articulate what constitutes terrorism in Western terms. In military contexts, terrorism is a tactic, not an ideology. Terrorism may be a tactic in a war between nation-states, in a civil war, or in an insurgency.

Counter-terrorism refers to offensive strategies intended to prevent a belligerent, in a broader conflict, from successfully using the tactic of terrorism. The US military definition, compatible with the definitions used by NATO and many other militaries, is "Operations that include the offensive measures taken to prevent, deter, preempt, and respond to terrorism." In other words, counter-terrorism is a set of techniques for denying an opponent the use of terrorism-based tactics, just as counter-air is a set of techniques for denying the opponent the use of attack aircraft.

Anti-terrorism is defensive, intended to reduce the chance of an attack using terrorist tactics at specific points, or to reduce the vulnerability of possible targets to such tactics. "Defensive measures used to reduce the vulnerability of individuals and property to terrorist acts, to include limited response and containment by local military and civilian forces."

To continue the analogy between air and terrorist capability, offensive counter-air missions attack the airfields of the opponent, while defensive counter-air uses antiaircraft missiles to protect a point on one's own territory. The ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Sri Lankan Civil War, and Colombian Civil War are examples of conflicts where terrorism is present, along with other tactics, so that participants use counter- and anti-terrorism to limit the opponent's use of terror tactics.

Planning for, detecting and neutralizing potential terrorist acts
Building a counter-terrorism plan involves all segments of a society or many government agencies. In dealing with foreign terrorists, the lead responsibility is usually at the national level. Because propaganda and indoctrination lie at the core of terrorism, understanding their profile and functions increases the ability to counter terrorism more effectively.

See the series of articles beginning with intelligence cycle management, and, in particular, intelligence analysis. HUMINT presents techniques of describing the social networks that make up terrorist groups. Also relevant are the motivations of the individual terrorist and the structure of cell systems used by recent non-national terrorist groups.

Most counter-terrorism strategies involve an increase in standard police and domestic intelligence. The central activities are traditional: interception of communications, and the tracing of persons. New technology has, however, expanded the range of military and law enforcement operations.

Domestic intelligence is often directed at specific groups, defined on the basis of origin or religion, which is a source of political controversy. Mass surveillance of an entire population raises objections on civil liberties grounds.

To select the effective action when terrorism appears to be more of an isolated event, the appropriate government organizations need to understand the source, motivation, methods of preparation, and tactics of terrorist groups. Good intelligence is at the heart of such preparation, as well as political and social understanding of any grievances that might be solved. Ideally, one gets information from inside the group, a very difficult challenge for HUMINT because operational terrorist cells are often small, with all members known to one another, perhaps even related.

Counterintelligence is a great challenge with the security of cell-based systems, since the ideal, but nearly impossible, goal is to obtain a clandestine source within the cell. Financial tracking can play a role, as can communications intercept, but both of these approaches need to be balanced against legitimate expectations of privacy.

Legal contexts
In response to the growing legislation.
 * United Kingdom
 * The United Kingdom has had anti-terrorism legislation in place for more than thirty years. The Prevention of Violence Act 1939 was brought in response to an Irish Republican Army (IRA) campaign of violence under the S-Plan. This act had been allowed to expire in 1953 and was repealed in 1973 to be replaced by the Prevention of Terrorism Acts a response to the Troubles in Northern Ireland. From 1974 to 1989 the temporary provisions of the act were renewed annually.
 * In 2000 the Acts were replaced with the more permanent Terrorism Act 2000, which contained many of their powers, and then the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005.
 * The Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 was formally introduced into the Parliament November 19, 2001 two months after the September 11, 2001 attacks in America. It received royal assent and went into force on December 13, 2001. On December 16, 2004 the Law Lords ruled that Part 4 was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, but under the terms of the Human Rights Act 1998 it remained in force. The Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 was drafted to answer the Law Lords ruling and the Terrorism Act 2006 creates new offences related to terrorism, and amends existing ones. The Act was drafted in the aftermath of the 7 July 2005 London bombings, and like its predecessors some of its terms have proven to be highly controversial.
 * United States
 * U.S. legal issues surrounding this issue include rulings on the domestic employment of Deadly force by law enforcement organizations.
 * Search and seizure is governed by the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
 * The US passed the USA PATRIOT Act after the 9/11 attacks, as well as a range of other legislation and executive orders.
 * The Department of Homeland Security was established to consolidate domestic security agencies to coordinate anti-terrorism, as well as national response to major natural disasters and accidents.
 * The Posse Comitatus Act limits domestic employment of the United States Army, requiring Presidential approval prior to deploying the Army.  Pentagon policy also applies this limitation to the United States Marine Corps, United States Navy, and United States Air Force.  The Department of Defense can be employed domestically on Presidential order, as was done during the Los Angeles riots of 1992, Hurricane Katrina and the Beltway Sniper incidents.
 * External or international use of lethal force would require a Presidential finding.


 * Australia
 * Australia has passed several anti-terrorism acts. In 2004, a bill comprising three acts Anti-terrorism Act, 2004, (No 2) and (No 3) was passed. Then Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, introduced the Anti-terrorism bill, 2004 on March 31. He described it as "a bill to strengthen Australia's counter-terrorism laws in a number of respects - a task made more urgent following the recent tragic terrorist bombings in Spain." He said that Australia's counter-terrorism laws "require review and, where necessary, updating if we are to have a legal framework capable of safeguarding all Australians from the scourge of terrorism." The Australian Anti-Terrorism Act 2005 supplemented the powers of the earlier acts. The Australian legislation allows police to detain suspects for up to two weeks without charge and to electronically track suspects for up to a year. The Australian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2005 included a "shoot-to-kill" clause. In a country with entrenched liberal democratic traditions, the measures are controversial and have been criticized by civil libertarians and Islamic groups.
 * Israel
 * On December 14, 2006 the Israeli Supreme Court ruled targeted killings were a permitted form of self defense.

Terrorism and human rights
One of the primary difficulties of implementing effective counter-terrorist measures is the waning of civil liberties and individual privacy that such measures often entail, both for citizens of, and for those detained by states attempting to combat terror. At times, measures designed to tighten security have been seen as abuses of power or even violations of human rights.

Examples of these problems can include prolonged, incommunicado detention without judicial review; risk of subjecting to torture during the transfer, return and extradition of people between or within countries; and the adoption of security measures that restrain the rights or freedoms of citizens and breach principles of non-discrimination. Examples include:
 * In November 2003 Malaysia passed new counter-terrorism laws that were widely criticized by local human rights groups for being vague and overbroad. Critics claim that the laws put the basic rights of free expression, association, and assembly at risk. Malaysia persisted in holding around 100 alleged militants without trial, including five Malaysian students detained for alleged terrorist activity while studying in Karachi, Pakistan.
 * In November 2003 a Canadian-Syrian national, Maher Arar, alleged publicly that he had been tortured in a Syrian prison after being handed over to the Syrian authorities by U.S.
 * In December 2003 Colombia's congress approved legislation that would give the military the power to arrest, tap telephones and carry out searches without warrants or any previous judicial order.
 * Images of unpopular treatment of detainees in US custody in Iraq and other locations have encouraged international scrutiny of US operations in the war on terror.
 * Hundreds of foreign nationals remain in prolonged indefinite detention without charge or trial in Guantánamo Bay, despite international and US constitutional standards some groups believe outlaw such practices.
 * Hundreds of people suspected of connections with the Taliban or al Qa'eda remain in long-term detention in Pakistan or in US-controlled centers in Afghanistan.
 * China has used the "war on terror" to justify its policies in the predominantly Muslim Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region to stifle Uighur identity.
 * In Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Yemen and other countries, scores of people have been arrested and arbitrarily detained in connection with suspected terrorist acts or links to opposition armed groups.
 * Until 2005 eleven men remained in high security detention in the UK under the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001.

Many would argue that such violations exacerbate rather than counter the terrorist threat. Human rights advocates argue for the crucial role of human rights protection as an intrinsic part to fight against terrorism. This suggests, as proponents of human security have long argued, that respecting human rights may indeed help us to incur security. Amnesty International included a section on confronting terrorism in the recommendations in the Madrid Agenda arising from the Madrid Summit on Democracy and Terrorism (Madrid 8–11 March 2005):


 * "Democratic principles and values are essential tools in the fight against terrorism. Any successful strategy for dealing with terrorism requires terrorists to be isolated. Consequently, the preference must be to treat terrorism as criminal acts to be handled through existing systems of law enforcement and with full respect for human rights and the rule of law. We recommend: (1) taking effective measures to make impunity impossible either for acts of terrorism or for the abuse of human rights in counter-terrorism measures. (2) the incorporation of human rights laws in all anti-terrorism programmes and policies of national governments as well as international bodies."

While international efforts to combat terrorism have focused on the need to enhance cooperation between states, proponents of human rights (as well as human security) have suggested that more effort needs to be given to the effective inclusion of human rights protection as a crucial element in that cooperation. They argue that international human rights obligations do not stop at borders and a failure to respect human rights in one state may undermine its effectiveness in the international effort to cooperate to combat terrorism.

Preemptive neutralization
Some countries see preemptive attacks as a legitimate strategy. This includes capturing, killing, or disabling suspected terrorists before they can mount an attack. Israel, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Russia have taken this approach, while Western European states generally do not.

Another major method of preemptive neutralization is interrogation of known or suspected terrorists to obtain information about specific plots, targets, the identity of other terrorists, whether or not the interrogation subjects himself is guilty of terrorist involvement. Sometimes more extreme methods are used to increase suggestibility, such as sleep deprivation or drugs. Such methods may lead captives to offer false information in an attempt to stop the treatment, or due to the confusion brought on by it. These methods are not tolerated by European powers. In 1978 the European Court of Human Rights ruled in the Ireland v. United Kingdom case that such methods amounted to a practice of inhuman and degrading treatment, and that such practices were in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights Article 3 (art. 3).

Non-military preventive actions
The human security paradigm outlines a non-military approach which aims to address the enduring underlying inequalities which fuel terrorist activity. Causal factors need to be delineated and measures implemented which allow equal access to resources and sustainability for all people. Such activities empower citizens providing 'freedom from fear' and 'freedom from want'.

This can take many forms including the provision of clean drinking water, education, vaccination programs, provision of food and shelter and protection from violence, military or otherwise. Successful human security campaigns have been characterized by the participation of a diverse group of actors including governments, NGOs, and citizens.

Foreign internal defense programs provide outside expert assistance to a threatened government. FID can involve both non-military and military aspects of counter-terrorism.

Another preventative action that has been used is the threat of and use of pork and pork products against radical religious groups that feel that contact with pork will render them unclean. The bodies of killed terrorists are daubed with lard and buried wrapped in pigskin.

Military intervention
Terrorism has often been used to justify military intervention in countries like Pakistan and Iran where terrorists are said to be based. That was the main stated justification for the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. It was also a stated justification for the second Russian invasion of Chechnya.

History has shown that military intervention has rarely been successful in stopping or preventing terrorism. Although military action can disrupt a terrorist group's operations temporarily, it rarely ends the threat.

Thus repression by the military in itself (particularly if it is not accompanied by other measures) usually leads to short term victories, but tend to be unsuccessful in the long run (e.g. the French's doctrine described in Roger Trinquier's book Modern War used in Indochina and Algeria). However, new methods (see the new Counterinsurgency Field Manual ) such as those taken in Iraq have yet to be seen as beneficial or ineffectual.

Mathematical Modeling of the Interaction Between Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism and Its Policy Implications
Mathematical modeling is currently being used to manage security policy. Specifically, scholars and practitioners of security studies are tackling the new challenge of managing terrorism. This technology can only be used if correct predictions are made. Models are being built to test predictions of situations that have never happened before through empirically validated theories. This allows the world to adapt at a quicker rate while being managed successfully. An essay in the September/October 2008 issue of Complexity explains such a modeling system looking at terrorism, counter-terrorism and their effects. The most general policy conclusions drawn from the models are: the counter-terrorism forces should close off the borders of any terrorist crossings; keep initial terrorist strength small and counter-terrorist effectiveness high; have large initial counter-terrorist forces; avoid any incentives for bandwagoning or growing sympathy for the terrorists. To keep the sympathy factor small, policy should withhold the general public of information regarding the terrorists’ success or activities. The activities of terrorists and counter-terrorists take place within the general public from which members are recruited. As terrorist and counter-terrorist activity increases, so will the need for recruitment. The models created have not yet discovered the implications of recruitment and therefore are only useful for situations in which terrorism and counter-terrorism is kept small.

Planning for response to terrorism
Police, fire, and emergency medical response organizations have obvious roles. Local firefighters and emergency medical personnel (often called "first responders") have plans for mitigating the effects of terrorist attacks, although police may deal with threats of such attacks.

Target-hardening
Whatever the target of terrorists, there are multiple ways of hardening the targets to prevent the terrorists from hitting their mark, or reducing the damage of attacks. One method is to place Jersey barrier or other sturdy obstacles outside tall or politically sensitive buildings to prevent car and truck bombing.

Aircraft cockpits are kept locked during flights, and have reinforced doors, which only the pilots in the cabin are capable of opening. English train stations removed their garbage cans in response to the Provisional IRA threat, as convenient locations for depositing bombs.

Scottish stations removed theirs after the 7th of July bombing of London as a precautionary measure. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority purchased bomb-resistant barriers after the September 11 terrorist attacks.

A more sophisticated target-hardening approach must consider industrial and other critical industrial infrastructure that could be attacked. Terrorists need not import chemical weapons if they can cause a major industrial accident such as the Bhopal disaster or the Halifax explosion. Industrial chemicals in manufacturing, shipping, and storage need greater protection, and some efforts are in progress. To put this risk into perspective, the first major lethal chemical attack in WWI used 160 tons of chlorine. Industrial shipments of chlorine, widely used in water purification and the chemical industry, travel in 90 or 55 ton tank cars.

To give one more example, the North American electrical grid has already demonstrated, in the Northeast Blackout of 2003, its vulnerability to natural disasters coupled with inadequate, possibly insecure, SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) networks. Part of the vulnerability is due to deregulation leading to much more interconnection in a grid designed for only occasional power-selling between utilities. A very few terrorists, attacking key power facilities when one or more engineers have infiltrated the power control centers, could wreak havoc.

Equipping likely targets with containers (i.e., bags) of pig lard has been utilized to discourage attacks by Islamist suicide bombers. The technique was apparently used on a limited scale by British authorities in the 1940s. The approach stems from the idea that Muslims perpetrating the attack would not want to be "soiled" by the lard in the moment prior to dying. The idea has been suggested more recently as a deterrent to suicide bombings in Israel. However, the actual effectiveness of this tactic is probably limited as it is possible that a sympathetic Islamic scholar could issue a fatwa proclaiming that a suicide bomber would not be polluted by the swine products.

Command and control
In North America and other continents, for a threatened or completed terrorist attack, the Incident Command System (ICS) is apt to be invoked to control the various services that may need to be involved in the response. ICS has varied levels of escalation, such as might be needed for multiple incidents in a given area (e.g., the 2005 bombings in London or the 2004 Madrid train bombings, or all the way to a National Response Plan invocation if national-level resources are needed. National response, for example, might be needed for a nuclear, biological, radiological, or large chemical attack.

Damage mitigation
Fire departments, perhaps supplemented by public works agencies, utility providers (e.g., gas, water, electricity), and heavy construction contractors, are most apt to deal with the physical consequences of an attack.

Local security
Again under an incident command model, local police can isolate the incident area, reducing confusion, and specialized police units can conduct tactical operations against terrorists, often using specialized counter-terrorist tactical units. Bringing in such units will normally involve civil or military authority beyond the local level.

Medical services
Emergency medical services will bring the more seriously affected victims to hospitals, which will need to have mass casualty and triage plans in place.

Public health agencies, from local to national level, may be designated to deal with identification, and sometimes mitigation, of possible biological attacks, and sometimes chemical or radiologic contamination.

Counter-terrorism tactical units
Today, many countries have special units designated to handle terrorist threats. Besides various security agencies, there are elite tactical units, also known as special mission units, whose role is to directly engage terrorists and prevent terrorist attacks.

Such units perform both in preventive actions, hostage rescue and responding to on-going attacks. Countries of all sizes can have highly trained counter-terrorist teams. Tactics, techniques and procedures for manhunting are under constant development.

Most of these measures deal with terrorist attacks that affect an area, or threaten to do so. It is far harder to deal with assassination, or even reprisals on individuals, due to the short (if any) warning time and the quick exfiltration of the assassins. Of course, if the assassination is done by a suicide bomber, exfiltration becomes moot.

These units are specially trained in tactics and are very well equipped for CQB with emphasis on stealth and performing the mission with minimal casualties. The units include take-over force (assault teams), snipers, EOD experts, dog handlers and intelligence officers. See Counter-intelligence and counter-terrorism organizations for national command, intelligence, and incident mitigation.

The majority of counter-terrorism operations at the tactical level, are conducted by state, federal and national law enforcement agencies or intelligence agencies. In some countries, the military may be called in as a last resort. Obviously, for countries whose military are legally permitted to conduct police operations, this is a non-issue, and such counter-terrorism operations are conducted by their military.

See Counter-intelligence for command, intelligence and warning, and incident mitigation aspects of counter-terror.

Examples of actions
Some counterterrorist actions of the 20th century are listed below. See List of hostage crises for a more extended list, including hostage-taking that did not end violently.

Designing Anti-terrorism systems
The scope for Anti-terrorism systems is very large in physical terms (long borders, vast areas, high traffic volumes in busy cities, etc.) as well as in other dimensions, such as type and degree of terrorism threat, political and diplomatic ramifications, and legal issues. In this environment, the development of a persistent Anti-terrorism protection system is a daunting task. Such a system should bring together diverse state-of-the-art technologies to enable persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions, and enable potential actions. Designing such a system-of-systems comprises a major technological project.

A particular design problem for this system is that it will face many uncertainties in the future. The threat of terrorism may increase, decrease or remain the same, the type of terrorism and location are difficult to predict, and there are technological uncertainties. Yet we want to design a terrorism system conceived and designed today in order to prevent acts of terrorism for a decade or more. A potential solution is to incorporate flexibility into system design for the reason that the flexibility embedded can be exercised in future as uncertainty unfolds and updated information arrives. And the design and valuation of a protection system should not be based on a single scenario, but an array of scenarios. Flexibility can be incorporated in the design of the terrorism system in the form of options that can be exercised in the future when new information is available. Using these ‘real options’ will create a flexible Anti-terrorism system that is able to cope with new requirements that may arise.

Law enforcement counter-terrorist organizations by country
+ indicates military organization allowed to operate domestically.

Examples include:
 * Argentina: GEOF (Special Group of Federal Operations, Federal Arg Police) Falcon Commando (Comando Halcon, State Buenos Aires Police)
 * Australia: State and Australian Federal Police Police Tactical Groups Australian Protective Service (APS), Tactical Assault Group (TAG East & TAG West)+, Australian Security and Intelligence Agency (ASIO),
 * Austria: EKO Cobra+; Austrian Military Police+ (Kommando Militärstreife & Militärpolizei - Kdo MilStrf&MP)
 * Bangladesh: Rapid Action Battalion+; Police Swat; Bangladesh Para Commandos; Bangladesh Navy Special Warfare Diving and Salvage (BN SWADS)
 * Brazil: State/local Police SWAT teams: BOPE, CORE, GOE, GATE, COT
 * Bosnia and Herzegovina: SIPA
 * Bulgaria:SOBT
 * Canada: ERT
 * Chile: GOPE (Police Special Operations Group, Chilean Carabineros) ERTA (Tactic Reaction Team, PDI Chilean Civil Police)
 * China: Snow Leopard Commando Unit+, Beijing SWAT, Special Police Unit and Immediate Action Unit+
 * Croatia Lučko Anti-Terrorist Unit, RH Alfa
 * Czech: URNA National Police Rapid Response Unit or Útvar Rychlého Nasazení
 * Denmark: Politiets Aktionsstyrke
 * Dominican Republic: Anti-terrorism Special Command - Comando Especial Contra Terrorismo
 * Estonia: K-Commando
 * Finland Karhu-ryhmä, Utti Jaeger Regiment, Guard Jaeger Regiment
 * France: Police units GIPN, RAID and Gendarmerie GIGN+
 * Germany: Police SEK / MEK, USK (Bavarian State Police), ZUZ and Bundespolizei GSG 9+
 * Greece: Anti-Terror Division, Greek Police and Special Anti-Terrorist Unit.
 * Hong Kong: Police Special Duties Unit, Airport Security Unit and Counter Terrorism Response Unit.
 * Hungary: Commando Neutron I-II.
 * Iceland: Víkingasveitin
 * India: NSG, Force One, State and Metropolitan Police Commandos
 * Indonesia: Detachment 88
 * Iran: NAJA Iranian Police ,NOPO Team Anti-terror special force
 * Iraq: Iraqi Hillah Swat
 * Ireland: Emergency Response Unit (Garda), Irish Army Ranger Wing
 * Israel: YAMAM - elite Israeli Police anti-terror unit (counter-terror, foiling terrorism, hostages rescue etc.), "Mistaarvim" -IDF and Border Guard undercover units for foiling terrorism
 * Italy: NOCS, GIS
 * Japan: Special Assault Team, Special Security Team
 * Korea, South: 707th Special Mission Unit+
 * Latvia: OMEGA police unit
 * Lithuania: ARAS (Force) Lithuanian Police force of antiterrorism operations
 * Malaysia: Pasukan Gerakan Khas, UNGERIN, Rapid Actions Troops, STAR APMM
 * Netherlands:DSI+ (Dutch: Dienst Speciale Interventies, Special Interventions Service) and police special arrest teams Royal Marechaussee(Dutch: Brigade Speciale Beveiligingsopdrachten, Special Security Task Brigade)dutch marines BBE
 * New Zealand: Special Tactics Group, NZSAS Tactical Assault Group (TAG)
 * Norway: Beredskapstroppen, FSK+
 * Poland: GROM
 * Portugal: GOE and COE
 * Pakistan: Special Service Group, Pakistan Army Rangers, and Elite Police Commandos
 * Philippines: PNP-Special Action Force, Philippine Navy-Naval Special Warfare Group, Coast Guard-Special Operations Group and police SWAT teams
 * Romania: Brigada Antiteroristă, (counter-terrorist brigade)
 * Russia: Spetsgruppa A, Vympel
 * Serbia: SAJ, PTJ
 * Sri Lanka: Special Task Force
 * Spain: GEO and UEI
 * Sweden: National Task Force (Nationella Insatsstyrkan) and Särskilda Skyddsgruppen (Special Protection Group)
 * Taiwan: Thunder Squad
 * Turkey: Özel tim-Özel Harekat Timi (Special Team) and Maroon Berets
 * UK: Counter Terrorism Command
 * Uruguay: GEO (Uruguayan Police) and Escorpión Commando Group (Uruguayan Army)
 * US: FBI Hostage Rescue Team+, Federal Air Marshal Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, BORTAC, state/local Police SWAT teams

Military counter-terrorist organizations by country
Given the nature of operational counter-terrorism tasks national military organisations do not generally have dedicated units whose sole responsibility is the prosecution of these tasks. Instead the counter-terrorism function is an element of the role, allowing flexibility in their employment, with operations being undertaken in the domestic or international context.

In some cases the legal framework within which they operate prohibits military units conducting operations in the domestic arena; United States Department of Defense policy, based on the Posse Comitatus Act, forbids domestic counter-terrorism operations by the US military. Units allocated some operational counter-terrorism task are frequently Special Forces or similar assets.

In cases where military organisations do operate in the domestic context some form of formal handover from the law enforcement community is regularly required, to ensure adherence to the legislative framework and limitations. such as the Iranian Embassy Siege, the British police formally turned responsibility over to the Special Air Service when the situation went beyond police capabilities.