Targeting terrorist leaders the Peruvian untouchables experience

Abstract

Peruvian civilian and military authorities were trapped on a dead-end road in the counterinsurgency struggle against the terrorist movement Shining Path until the capture of the organization's top leader on September 12, 1992. The episode led to the eventual demise of the terrorist organization. This thesis argues that the successful operation was a consequence of the particular organization and working processes of the intelligence unit assigned to this sensitive case, and describes the extent to which the capture contributed to the defeat of the insurgency. Given the characteristics of the Shining Path terrorist organization, it was necessary to design a Special Intelligence Group with specific characteristics that made the group strong enough to overcome the obstacles of the reality it faced in Peru. Several other units with the same mission were unsuccessful in the twelve years of open struggle against the Shining Path. During its 22 years of activity, the Shining Path had built a solidly impenetrable organization, which allowed the police and military to hit the organizations' military apparatus, but not the political one. In Maoist organizations like the Shining Path, the political apparatus controls the organization. A study of the tactics, techniques and procedures developed by the Special Intelligence Group and the exchange between the intelligence and the operations components, as well as the decision making process within the group itself, demonstrates the organizational necessity of secrecy, isolation, motivation and delegation of authority for this type of mission.