I thought this was the case. There would be less and less attacks if there was an effective intelligence gathering service. You can't just rely on the people to provide you intelligence, they may be scared, they may not want to turn in their family members. Security needs to rely on multiple sources of defence. Security isn't just one layer, it has to be multiple layers. For example a house cannot just rely on it's neighbor to report to them if their house is being broken into. They need to put in cameras, alarms, and use other security strategies on top of relying his neighbor advice. Notice you secure a house using multiple methods not just rely one method.
Puntland needs a multi-layered approach. We need to stop saying 'the people' must work with us and leave it at that. That is just one layer, you need agents everywhere in the cities, in the districts, in the mosques, tea shops, markets. Tell each agent his objective, for example an agent in the mosque will listen to any radical teachings, anti government messages, locals being groomed. However in the tea shop or the district an agent objective can be totally different, he will join in the conversation between the locals, listen for any suspicious planning, spot anyone who is isolating themselves from community. Where-as an agent in the market place you tell him to follow suspicious transfers of money, follow suspicious purchases of arms, explosive equipment, etc. The key objective must be 'preventation' their goal should be to stop an attack occurring before it occurs. When people plan attacks, it takes weeks, months before it actually happens. Their goal should be at all times to monitor and then foil. Sometimes it's better to wait till your target takes you to bigger fish, like higher members in the network, unknown religious teachers, suppliers, trainers, corruption within your own security forces who turn a blind eye because it is their 'tol', etc.
I honestly think Puntland can defeat this menace of terrorism, terrorists are not people that fall from the sky. They live among you. They need to talk to people, go to mosque, go to market place, go to school, etc. Even when they are planning attacks, they need to get weapons, ammunition, set up get away.
We must have a plan where terrorists take 1 step, we have to be two steps ahead and are waiting for them from every angle. Our recruitment of agents must also be very good. For example, we want chat chewing agents in the tea shops so they can fit in and listen to conversations. We want religious agents in mosques so they can listen in on the teachings and fit in with the crowd and don't stand out. We want financial graduates working in hawalas getting agent salaries to monitor suspicious payments. We want traders as agents in the market place where guns, ammunition, devices to make explosives are. It needs to also be multi clan and each agent sent to his own people. We must warn the agents if an attack occurrs and an investigation is carried out and it is proven they failed in their area of expertise or the attack could've of been stopped where they were working, they will be held accountable, because sometimes they may not want to foil an attack because it is their friend, family member, or tribes man. So we need some sort of punishment in place for agents who do this and they must be told it will be found out because once an explosion, assasination, attacks occur and it is determined it could've been stopped from their area of operation, they will take the fall for it.
I would even put agents inside the government, security sectors, to see if there is a security breach happening inside our own wing. In this age of terrorism, there is no way to stop an attack if we don't have 'eyes' in all sections of our society.