FBI Counterterrorism Division
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The FBI Counterterrorism Division (CTD) is the division of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation that deals with terrorist threats inside the United States. It also provides information on terrorists outside the country and tracks known terrorists worldwide. In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, the FBI Counterterrorism Division has received huge amounts of funding and manpower. The Division is headed by Assistant Director Joseph Billy Jr.
The Counterterrorism Division has four branches:
- Operations I (OPS I);
- Operations II (OPS II);
- Analytical; and
- Operational Support.
Operations I is composed of two sections: International Terrorism Operations Section I (ITOS I) and ITOS II. The former covers al Qaeda terrorist activity on a regional basis in the United States and abroad. The latter focuses on four non-al Qaeda groups: Palestinian rejectionist groups, Iran and Hezbollah, Iraq/Syria/Libya, and other global terrorist groups. The ITOS II has a CIA manager serving as Deputy Section Chief, and an FBI manager is detailed to the CIA’s CTC as a Deputy Director.
Operations II includes three more disparate sections: Weapons of Mass Destruction and Domestic Terrorism (WMD/DT), Communications Exploitation Section (CXS), and Terrorist Financing Operations Section (TFOS). Operational oversight for WMD is housed with domestic terrorism, despite its international scope.
The Terrorism Financing Operations Section, housed in Operations II, is an operational and coordinating entity. It directs terrorism financing investigations and works jointly with partners to block and freeze assets. However, its primary role is to coordinate and support the financial components of terrorism investigations conducted by ITOS I and II. The TFOS mission is to identify, investigate, prosecute, disrupt, and incrementally dismantle all terrorist-related financial and fund-raising activities. The section is composed of four units: Radical Fundamentalist Financial Investigative Unit, Domestic WMD and Global Financial Investigations Unit, Global Extremist Financial Investigations Unit, and Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit.
The Counterterrorism Division’s Analytical branch includes two sections, Counterterrorism Analysis, which supports Operations I and II; and the Terrorism Reports and Requirements Section (TRRS). The branch also includes a Strategic Assessment and Analysis Unit, Production and Publications Unit.
The Operational Support Branch manages the CTD’s administrative and resource functions, FBI detailees to other agencies, and the Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force
Counterterrorism field operations are organized into squads, the number of which varies according to the amount and diversity of activity in a field office’s jurisdiction. Larger field offices, such as Los Angeles, maintain counterterrorism squads for each major terrorist group, as well as for domestic terrorism and terrorist financing, while smaller field offices combined such responsibilities across two to three squads.
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