A Beslan or Mumbai Strike on Churches

If al Qaeda, weaker yet anxious to carry out a 9/11 anniversary attack to remain credible and viable, felt obliged to seek high impact with limited resources, what better way than to stage a Beslan-style attack at a megachurch on a Sunday, 9/11/11? To the terrorists, such a target has attractive features, yet also obstacles and risk not necessarily anticipated.

First, what makes the megachurch an attractive target for this occasion? A weakened al Qaeda may not be able to replicate aircraft hijackings and see them through to the devastation of the 9/11 of a decade ago. Even if their operatives managed to commandeer passenger aircraft, the element of surprise is no longer with them. Gone are the days when accepted wisdom and security advice encouraged passengers to sit it out and await negotiations with hijackers to bring matters to a nonviolent close. Instead, the new expectation is what the passengers of United Flight 93 figured out for themselves: go down fighting. Thus, weaponizing passenger aircraft is not as likely to meet no passenger resistance as before. This makes it more attractive to strike from the ground. Megachurches assemble large numbers of people at arguably their most exposed condition: acceptance of strangers out of Christian benevolence. Entering this kind of environment is easier than, say, going into a federal courthouse or state capitol. Such targeted institutions also have to have parking facilities, which offer options for bringing weapons and improvised explosives closer and closer to intended victims. Finally, even those churches with armed security guards hardly have the number of defenders and kinds of weaponry sufficient to prevail in a firefight with a handful of purposeful, assault-rifle-equipped attackers. Few churches can tolerate a Gestapo image to contrast with their fundamentally open, welcoming embrace of their flock and any sinners in search of inner peace. So, given the right weapons and steeped in homicidal resolve, terrorists could turn a megachurch's spiritual gathering into a bloodbath. Besides, 9/11 falls on a Sunday this year, and turnout at a megachurch offers a greater concentration of potential victims and attending media coverage than, say, targeting a shopping mall or the kinds of public facilities that are closed on weekends. So much for the advantages.

Now for the disadvantages. Americans, even those animated by Christian benevolence, still have enough pioneer spirit and self-determination coursing through their cardio-vascular systems to go down fighting where others may not. Unlike Beslan, where Russians had to call on the Spetsnaz to respond to the Beslan suicide attack on a school and its defenseless children, most megachurches fall within reasonable proximity to a competent SWAT team. Moreover, as American law enforcement has learned from the Colombine tragedy, today's active shooter protocol no longer advises the nearest police responders to hold back and leave the situation to SWAT. Instead, the prevailing wisdom is to enter and engage, something all responders understand, especially the FDNY firefighters who perished in unmatched number while responding to the World Trade Center attacks ten years ago. In other times and places, victims shocked by a brutal attack fail to engage. The Mumbai attacks, for example, came with stories of how surprised local police officers refused to draw their weapons and went cowering in the face of determined attackers who outgunned them. Don't expect that phenomenon to rule the day if a megachurch comes under fire.

In ten years, our world has changed. Attacks thought too horrific to ponder have become scenarios in contingency plans. Terrorists may pick any target and, not necessarily being rational actors in their schemes, they may not think through their assumptions about American weakness, resolve, or capacity to adapt and fight back. May they not further their understanding at our expense, however.

- Nick Catrantzos