The Attacks in Sri Lanka Highlight Another Missed Early Warning. How Does This Happen? By Siobhán O'Grady – Washington Post
… Underlying all these developments is a single, pressing question: Could the carnage have been stopped before it ever started?
It’s a question intelligence officials around the world grapple with in the aftermath of every deadly terrorist attack — from 9/11 to the Paris attacks, the Manchester Arena bombing and beyond.
“Any terrorist attack is by definition an intelligence failure,” said Raffaello Pantucci, director of international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies in London. “Intelligence’s job is to stay on top of these problems and stop them from happening.”
But experts say it’s much easier in hindsight to understand what was a crucial piece of information and to see that security forces should have acted on it. On a daily basis, intelligence officials “may be getting swamped” with tips and warnings, said Seth Jones, a terrorism expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies…