Recent portrayals of body cavity bombs as game changers that may present a new means of delivering a devastating Bojinka-plot-style attack against commercial aviation are more knee-jerk over-reaction than thoughtful security guidance.
One such article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1218562/Bombers-hide-devices-inside-bodies-Travellers-Europe-face-body-X-rays.html#
My rationale for taking this with a grain of salt is that there are a lot of experiments that terrorist groups have tried out and then just given up for one main reason: they didn't work. The recently reported body cavity bomb killed the suicide bomber but not his target. Now the details of this kind of attack are coming out on radical web sites. Is it because the terrorists are bragging about it and trying to show off, or is it because this was a failed experiment and they are trying to get some bit of mileage out of it? I suspect the latter.
I see this phenomenon as analagous to the chlorine weaponization fears we witnessed in the opening months of 2007 in Iraq. It became almost a fad, until about March or April 2007, to throw a chlorine cylinder into the back of a pick-up that had been turned into a truck bomb. While the handful of cases of this action created a lot of fears of chlorine weaponization and new WMD attacks in the U.S., the reality proved otherwise. Fatalities came not from chlorine gas attacks, but from the explosions. Moreover, the bombs themselves consumed most of the chlorine released from cylinders. By November of that year, the trend had gone the opposite way. Too much control of chlorine out of fears of weaponization led to delays in delivering it for water disinfection, and cholera outbreaks in Iraq started to occur, as a result.
My sense is that the same kind of phenomenon is taking place with these body cavity bombs. So if the terrorists can't use the tactic effectively to attack targets, they seem to be trying to get mileage out of it to force the rest of us to overspend on new defenses.
What to do as a defender? Take a page from California's Office of Emergency Services of the 1990s and from TSA's current playbook that allows some flexibility in implementing random, enhanced security measures. OES did this during the first Gulf War when shadowy threats of Iraqi agents in California left private and public entities clamoring for advice about what to do. In addition to feasible countermeasures, an OES instructor recommended placing visible signs saying things more or less like, "We are sorry for the inconvenience caused by our extra security during these times of heightened alert." This tactic gave pause to potential attackers, even when the defenders had not yet implemented a single extra security measure. Such measures remain in our current playbook, and it makes no sense to scrap them or to treat one more botched attack as a game changer. Used judiciously, tactics already in hand are not a bad way of turning the tables on adversaries who would try to scare us as their consolation prize for not being able to blow us up with something pulled from their ... nether regions.
PS: The Bojinka plot to blow up multiple airplanes at the same time failed.
- Nick Catrantzos
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Ft. Hood: Workplace Violence vs. Terror
The Ft. Hood shooting is a better candidate for categorization as workplace violence rather than terror. But this does not mean that the shooter won't join the popular rush to align himself with jihad or a more spectacular cause to somehow try to dignify his villainy. He may be nothing but a cowardly loser, yet he will most likely chase recognition and respect of a kind by trying to elevate his deplorable actions as something more than what they truly were. Here is the rationale for identifying him more with workplace violence than terror:
- Relatively few signs of planning other than giving away furniture -- at least based on what is in the media so far. Also, no sign of a Plan B, in case the shooting did not cause enough fatalities in his estimation.
- No apparent escape plan, although terrorists and rampage killers have been known to carry out one-way missions.
- Death toll comparable to Columbine, the work of unsophisticated kids, whereas this shooter was apparently a well educated individual who would have been able to plan for more casualties, particularly if under the control of a terror cell.
- Weapons choice: handguns vs. automatic weapons, explosives, or combination of both. Also, he would have been in a better position than most to unleash a biological weapon, particularly if he had returned to the good graces of his medical community. Historically and statistically, the bomb remains the terrorist weapon of choice and, given this individual's access, would have been easy to place strategically and in quantity in multiple areas on post to increase damage and fatalities. A modestly planned attack would have one explosion triggering evacuations right into the line of fire, for example. But this didn't happen.
- Multiple signs of volatility and instability, whereas an agent of a terror network would be selected and trained to avoid drawing attention and to blend until directed to strike. An unstable individual, on the other hand, would make a lousy recruit and threaten to compromise the network through ill-considered actions and
inattention to operational security. Even the Al Qaeda Manual that the British captured in Manchester in 2002 advised would-be agents of jihad to fit in, blend, and avoid overly ostensible identification with their true cause and ideology.
- In The Islamist as well as in other studies on the unconventional threat, I seem to recall that the more normal pattern of radicalization is to stop attending mosque and instead turn to a clandestine cell for social identity reinforcement and validation as one becomes more radicalized. Didn't this fellow go the opposite way?
- Triggering events consistent with last straws typically found in workplace violence cases: bad performance review(s), stymied in attaining personal goals (to avoid impending combat deployment),increasingly alienated without spouse or close personal anchors, most likely facing negative career events (court martial? loss of
professional licenses?), seeing no way out of self-created predicament.
- Nick Catrantzos
- Relatively few signs of planning other than giving away furniture -- at least based on what is in the media so far. Also, no sign of a Plan B, in case the shooting did not cause enough fatalities in his estimation.
- No apparent escape plan, although terrorists and rampage killers have been known to carry out one-way missions.
- Death toll comparable to Columbine, the work of unsophisticated kids, whereas this shooter was apparently a well educated individual who would have been able to plan for more casualties, particularly if under the control of a terror cell.
- Weapons choice: handguns vs. automatic weapons, explosives, or combination of both. Also, he would have been in a better position than most to unleash a biological weapon, particularly if he had returned to the good graces of his medical community. Historically and statistically, the bomb remains the terrorist weapon of choice and, given this individual's access, would have been easy to place strategically and in quantity in multiple areas on post to increase damage and fatalities. A modestly planned attack would have one explosion triggering evacuations right into the line of fire, for example. But this didn't happen.
- Multiple signs of volatility and instability, whereas an agent of a terror network would be selected and trained to avoid drawing attention and to blend until directed to strike. An unstable individual, on the other hand, would make a lousy recruit and threaten to compromise the network through ill-considered actions and
inattention to operational security. Even the Al Qaeda Manual that the British captured in Manchester in 2002 advised would-be agents of jihad to fit in, blend, and avoid overly ostensible identification with their true cause and ideology.
- In The Islamist as well as in other studies on the unconventional threat, I seem to recall that the more normal pattern of radicalization is to stop attending mosque and instead turn to a clandestine cell for social identity reinforcement and validation as one becomes more radicalized. Didn't this fellow go the opposite way?
- Triggering events consistent with last straws typically found in workplace violence cases: bad performance review(s), stymied in attaining personal goals (to avoid impending combat deployment),increasingly alienated without spouse or close personal anchors, most likely facing negative career events (court martial? loss of
professional licenses?), seeing no way out of self-created predicament.
- Nick Catrantzos
Sunday, November 8, 2009
The Ft. Hood Columbine
Modern society faces tragedy by rushing to point the accusing finger of blame. Adaptive society faces tragedy by learning from it, to prevent if possible and mitigate if not. The Ft. Hood, Texas, shooting of November 5, 2009 left 13 victims dead and 42 wounded. The Columbine High School shooting at Littleton, Colorado, on April 20, 1999, left 13 dead and 21 wounded.
No sooner had the Ft. Hood carnage surfaced in the media than reporter speculation began about whether all those casualties were simply too many for the single shooter to cause with the guns he had and to start asking questions about friendly fire. Similarly, anecdotes about the shooter fueled the usual speculation about clear signals that should have been recognized and acted upon. All this is to be expected. Scapegoating, embroidery, and finger-pointing fill gaps if reporters find themselves short of facts.
What, however, will be the adaptive lesson of Fort Hood? Look for better assessment protocols to emerge on earlier identification and containment of unstable characters and for more studies on how to counter self-radicalization. This is the Columbine moment of the Fort Hood catastrophe. Just as Columbine spawned the active shooter protocol, Fort Hood will ultimately give defenders new tools in their protective toolbox. Perhaps the lessons will include insights about the dark corners where dangerous, unstable insiders lurk and better ways to intervene before they attack.
The active shooter lessons of Columbine were that the only way to minimize casualties is to engage the shooter without delay, a lesson proven at individual peril by the by Fort Hood Police Sergeant Kimberly Munley, who exchanged gunfire with the shooter and stopped the casualty count, even as she sustained serious wounds in the exchange. Somewhere in her tactical training, Sgt. Munley may well have absorbed a Columbine lesson about how to handle an active shooter. Unscathed soldiers and civilians at that Army post benefited from the lesson and Munley’s application of it that prevented additional casualties. Before Columbine, the preoccupation would have been with evacuation, treatment, and searching while waiting for a SWAT team or other specialized unit to set up and confront the shooter – despite the likelihood of having more lives lost or risked in the process. Now, active shooters get engaged instantly by courageous, come-as-you-are defenders like Sgt. Munley.
We don’t yet know all the lessons Fort Hood will teach us. But they will evolve and they will inevitably make their way into the defender’s arsenal. If only such lessons did not come at so high a cost …
- Nick Catrantzos
No sooner had the Ft. Hood carnage surfaced in the media than reporter speculation began about whether all those casualties were simply too many for the single shooter to cause with the guns he had and to start asking questions about friendly fire. Similarly, anecdotes about the shooter fueled the usual speculation about clear signals that should have been recognized and acted upon. All this is to be expected. Scapegoating, embroidery, and finger-pointing fill gaps if reporters find themselves short of facts.
What, however, will be the adaptive lesson of Fort Hood? Look for better assessment protocols to emerge on earlier identification and containment of unstable characters and for more studies on how to counter self-radicalization. This is the Columbine moment of the Fort Hood catastrophe. Just as Columbine spawned the active shooter protocol, Fort Hood will ultimately give defenders new tools in their protective toolbox. Perhaps the lessons will include insights about the dark corners where dangerous, unstable insiders lurk and better ways to intervene before they attack.
The active shooter lessons of Columbine were that the only way to minimize casualties is to engage the shooter without delay, a lesson proven at individual peril by the by Fort Hood Police Sergeant Kimberly Munley, who exchanged gunfire with the shooter and stopped the casualty count, even as she sustained serious wounds in the exchange. Somewhere in her tactical training, Sgt. Munley may well have absorbed a Columbine lesson about how to handle an active shooter. Unscathed soldiers and civilians at that Army post benefited from the lesson and Munley’s application of it that prevented additional casualties. Before Columbine, the preoccupation would have been with evacuation, treatment, and searching while waiting for a SWAT team or other specialized unit to set up and confront the shooter – despite the likelihood of having more lives lost or risked in the process. Now, active shooters get engaged instantly by courageous, come-as-you-are defenders like Sgt. Munley.
We don’t yet know all the lessons Fort Hood will teach us. But they will evolve and they will inevitably make their way into the defender’s arsenal. If only such lessons did not come at so high a cost …
- Nick Catrantzos
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