This secretive agency in Alabama keeps missiles out of the hands of terrorists (Video)

(Video above: CNN gets an inside look at the Missile and Space Intelligence Center)

There is a small group of Alabamians who wake up every morning and devote their lives to preventing terrorists from getting their hands on missiles and reacquiring them if they do, and you probably don’t even know they exist.

Huntsville, Alabama, is home to the Missile and Space Intelligence Center, a branch of the military’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). This organization helps the US government find missiles that may have fallen into enemy hands and also helps solve cases where rogue missiles are involved.

CNN’s Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto visited the DIA facility a few months ago and got an inside look into how they are involved in the fight against terrorism.

To understand some of what they do, it is probably worth imagining a scene closely resembling something out of Fox’s “24.” An American operative discovers a terrorist plot involving a foreign-made weapons system, but even though they are not American weapons, the operative somehow knows exactly how to operate them and goes on to thwart the plot. He was probably prepared for that situation by the DIA’s Alabama team.

The DIA helps train pilots and other war fighters on how to handle missiles and other weapons systems. The agency has a number of foreign weapons that they have bought, captured, or acquired by means the DIA can’t disclose. Many of these weapons are still operational to train fighters how to handle them in a combat situation.

The DIA analysts are also concerned with the proliferation of missile technology that could be acquired by terrorists or rogue states.

“We have greater concerns about the smaller missile threats, and the likelihood of the proliferation of those,” says Mark Clark, Director of the Missile and Space Intelligence Center in Huntsville. Some of those smaller shoulder-fire missiles have targeted over 60 civilian aircraft in recent years. These missiles can be bought on the black market for relatively cheap and they are incredibly easy and quick to use.

The DIA works tirelessly to help discover where those missiles are and how to prevent attacks. They are also involved after missile attacks by trying to solve the case of what happened. The Technical Analysis Room is a CSI-style facility where a fingerprint or a sample of DNA can help tell a story.

When Russian-backed rebels brought down Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in Ukraine last year, analysts at the DIA began working to figure out what caused the crash.

“Within the hour and a half, we were confident that it was a missile that shot it down – a surface-to-air missile that shot it down,” explained Randy Jones, the chief scientist at the DIA. “We had a fair idea of which one, although we still had some homework to do.”

Within hours, the analysts were confident they had determined the weapon used and that Russian-backed separatists had fired a Russian-made missile at the plane.

The DIA Missile and Space Intelligence Center is sometimes overlooked by the more famous NASA facility that also resides in Huntsville, but the DIA has given Alabama a powerful and crucial role in America’s fight against terrorism.