Suicide Terror – Fire Fighters Response

By Henry Morgenstern
President
Security Solutions International (SSI)
www.securitysolutionsint.com

Security Solutions International is the leading national training company for Homeland Security from awareness training for first responders, to hospital and medical response and even helicopter and marine emergency response to acts of terror. The SSI training program is based on Israeli experience that is contextualized for the US.

Henry Morgenstern is published widely (IACSP, The Journal, Executive Flyer, PoliceTraining.net) on the subject of suicide terror and has presented a web cast on that subject last month.

The threat to firefighters from acts of terror should be painfully obvious after 9/11. Never has there been an attack, anywhere in the world, that took the lives of 343 firefighters.

Unfortunately, Many Fire Departments view the threat of Suicide Terror on American Soil seriously but feel that if this happens it will happen somewhere else and therefore it is not a direct threat to their jurisdiction. Scarce funds are therefore not allocated to training for this possibility. We all hope this will never happen but events show that there are no good grounds for being optimistic about if, when and where terrorism could strike in our communities.

Everything happening in Iraq shows that the weapon is effective as far as terrorists are concerned. In training hundreds of agencies to deal with terrorist threats, we have learned a few things: number one is that are no red lines where terrorists are concerned; that terrorists will employ the most inconceivable methods in unpredictable places; experience in Middle East, in Asia and in Europe demonstrates that their targets are very difficult to determine.

In the light of this, it pays Fire Departments – truly first responders – to be aware of the mindset of terrorists, their modus operandi and some ideas for force safety in responding to these attacks.

Suicide Terror in the Mind of Terrorists

The first attack of Suicide Terror occurred in Lebanon in 1983. On April 19 th a car that had been watching the US Embassy there drove a few blocks and flashed its lights to a truck waiting for that signal. As the truck sped towards its destination,
the many Embassy staff, including the entire Intelligence division, had no idea that their world was about to end. Within minutes, 63 Americans were dead and hundreds more were injured.

Within a few months the success of this first mission
encouraged enemies of the US Peace mission in Lebanon to employ a far deadlier attack.

In place of a 2000 pound bomb used against the Embassy, a 12,000 pound bomb was used against the Marine Barracks The deadly attack, pictured here, killing 242 Americans and caused the US to leave Lebanon.

The birth of the Vehicle Born Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED) heralded a new era.

Not only had the terrorists in Lebanon successfully attacked a super-power without having sophisticated weapons. In employing what is arguably the most sophisticated weapon available – a human bomb, one that can change its mind, defer delivery, change target or even decide not to deploy – they forced the US to leave Lebanon. That created the justification for use of Suicide Terror as a weapon.

Since then, the weapon has been used extensively by terrorists – and not only by Islamic Fundamentalists. The Tamil Tigers have even used it more than the Islamic groups.

The reason: it was successful from their point of view.

What is the Modus Operandi of Terrorists

Every terror group uses different methods in carrying out their heinous attacks against indiscriminate targets. In reviewing many case studies relating to the use of the weapon in Iraq and using classified information obtained by the Israeli Police after having interviewed many suicide terrorists, we have come to some important conclusions.

The idea that the act of Suicide Terrorism is the act of a deranged individual who is a young male and a fundamentalist fanatic is totally wrong. There is a well-oiled machine that deploys this weapon. It relies on:

• Funding to achieve its aims, usually in the guise of benevolent fund-raising but also utilizing crime such as cigarette smuggling, drug dealing and theft
• A recruitment procedure that uses the values of the Moslem Community to recruit even reluctant participants
• Religious justification – since Suicide itself is forbidden by most religions, this forms a vital factor in enabling recruits to contradict their religious faith.

Generally, Islamic Fundamentalist groups use the Mosque as the main focus of recruitment. By having cell members interact with the community, they can discover people that are fanatics, recently bereaved, even those whose moral standards are at odds with the community’s values. All these issues are used for recruitment.

So the potential Suicide Terrorist may come from a different backgrounds, different age groups, be male or female, educated or uneducated, an upstanding citizen, or a deviant.

When a potential suicide bomber is spotted, various means are employed to monitor their behavior but all result in the same. When the final approach is made it must result in success or risk the entire mission. After recruitment the “ticking bomb” goes through a process of preparation that can take weeks or hours.

Religious sanctification of the act is first and foremost. For this terrorists will rely on “Fatwas” or religious opinions such as the one of that most famous of “clerics” Osama Bin Laden in 1998 that attacking any American anywhere is completely justified. The well-known promise of 72 virgins in the after life is just one potential reward. Much more effective are promises that a family with a member of suspect moral standards will be redeemed completely as a result of his act.

When the recruit has the bomb operation explained to him, he will undergo mental preparation for the task at hand. This can involve lying in graves to prepare the recruit for death, careful analysis of the target and briefing about how and when, and finally the recruit will be sent to his or her target and rituals of purification before the end of this life.

Spot the Suicide Terrorist? – Answer: All of them!

 

What does all this have to do with the US? Right now in Mexico’s Chiapas region a very worrying increase in Islamic Fundamentalism is taking place among the impoverished of that area and could translate into fertile ground for recruitment. In Islamic communities across the US, there are families that are torn apart by the culture clash, when younger members adopt US standards of behavior. In these communities, the very suspicion of extra-marital affairs or even “dating” without the proper protocol may shame the family, lower their status drastically and create the conditions for successful recruitment.

Responding to acts of Terror

The general role of firefighters is response to acts of terror. However, on April 17 th firefighters doing a routine inspection in Brooklyn discovered a cache of stolen airbags and walls covered with pictures of Osama Bin Laden and beheadings. The Joint Terrorist task force was brought in to search the building. In other words, a well-trained firefighter, able to recognize the key elements of improvised explosives, incitement literature and even the effects of bomb making (For example: corrosion on anything metal in the house) can even be instrumental in detection of terror activities.

Given that the main role is to respond, what are the principal dangers that firefighters will face?

• Glass: The shards from Glass are a terrible threat to forces responding to an attack because there may be more than one bomb or bomber. The blast wave from any explosion travels at anywhere from 9000 to 22,500 feet per second and glass is one of the main causes of death and severe traumatic injury in any attack. Terrorists are also aware of this. In one attack on an embassy complex, armed men fired their guns bringing people to the windows just before the VBIED’s rolled in – increasing by many times the amount of dead and injured.

• Structural safety: Information about the structural capacity of buildings should be readily accessible to all forces that must respond to an incident. There is no greater example of this than 9/11. The brave men that rushed in might have rushed in anyway but guidelines can definitely be drawn up and in combined force drills, team leaders should have an idea about the structural situation in key buildings in their areas. There are also many tools available today for having pin-point information about building lay-outs that can also save First Responder lives as well as the victims of any blast.

• Incident Management and Force Safety: Everyone is being guided by the NIMS national Incident Management System. The subject of incident management is to big to cover in a short article but let’s look at some of the prerequisites that make a terror incident special and make sure that these have been well and truly drilled into your response forces.

Multi-Focal or Second Bomb Incidents

The table above is from the ATF web site and is readily available on many Internet Sites. If you look at the numbers you will see that the amount of explosive from a sedan at 500 pounds to a van carrying 1000 pounds only increases the death zone by some 25 feet. These are clearly a very important 25 feet. To double the death zone you need 8 times the amount of explosives. Clearly a few feet can make a big difference.

This should be one of the prime factors in deciding and setting up your patterns of response around high profile events, buildings and other installations and in your training.

Terrorists are looking to cause the maximum destruction and one of the best ways to do this is paralyze the forces that must respond to a terror incident. This is a tactic that is very much favored – you can even consider it the norm and not the exception. The greatest Second Bomb incident was of course, 9/11.

These second bomb incidents take many forms. Some of the more common ones that have been used:

1. A suicide terrorist in combination with a car bomb parked nearby and detonated by terrorists observers either by cell phone or some other type of remote control and in rare instance by timer.
2. Two suicide terrorists – one will detonate and the second waits until the first responders are in range and then detonates.
3. A suicide terrorist and a bomb previously placed in a receptacle or other place near the incident and this bomb is then detonated.
4. A sniper in conjunction with a Suicide Bomber. He targets First Responders.
5. These are the most common. Again, it is best to think the unthinkable when it comes to Suicide Terror attacks because the enemy has no red lines and I am sure if you put your minds to them you could list other possibilities that may or may not have been carried out yet.

The bombing of the Atocha rail station in Spain in March 2004 was covered on security cameras at the scene. Anyone that has seen this footage will note how first responders attempt to flee the platform as secondary bombs are discovered and the tragedy of so many that could not make it. In that incident, Spain’s worst, there were 191 people killed and 1900 injured.

1. In Israel, EOD teams scour the area and clear it – as much as possible – before First Responders are allowed in. This is not always possible because the natural reaction is to try and help the injured. You must proceed with care and follow your own local area procedures.
2. Communications equipment should take into account that heavy use from the blast site sometimes causes problems with the entire system and frequent system crashes.
3. Clear identification of First Responders should be made through uniforms but bear in mind that impersonating First Responder has been a standard tactic in Israel.
4. Vehicles coming in and out of the area should be similarly identified. In Israel, ambulances are marked with codes that enable aerial surveillance to detect any attempt at that kind of assault on the blast scene.
5. Triage should be well planned and well out of the area.
6. There are many evidence preservation procedures that are required by the nature of the incident.
7. Be prepared to manage a very large media response.
8. Scene command location should be well thought out given all these considerations.

In Israel, volunteers – many First Responders themselves, but not on active duty, are used by teams arriving at the scene to carry out a variety of functions. This is probably not possible here in the US for a number of reasons. In this case, the perimeter for observers arriving at the scene – there will be thousands – should be well back from the incident.

Israeli EMT’s and EMS personnel are expected to evacuate some 40 victims every fifteen minutes. The scene at a terror attack is chaotic. Anyone that has seen one should know that avoiding shock to first responders is a very valid concern. It is difficult, except with detailed videos such as those we show at our training sessions to imagine the scene, and prepare for what you will see. We recommend preparing all teams to be able to deal with the situation in a professional way despite the fact that they are seeing a living hell.

What other problems will you encounter? By-standers tend to gather, choking routes in and out of the scene. Panic traffic to and anyway from the scene poses all kinds of problems. Traffic management can be very difficult

Improving response: Force Coordination

This is a readily understood concept that gets a lot of lip service but ends up being buried under turf wars and real technological difficulties. Without the complete cooperation of Federal, State and Local enforcement, there is no possibility of preventing these attacks. The present debate in New York over whether Police or Fire should manage the scene of a terror incident underlines the need for this.

This cooperation must seek to duplicate the Israeli model where everyone has served in that Nation’s army. Therefore, people know each other across the spectrum of First Respoinder activities and have access to each other across units and jurisdictions. Clearly, Israel is a very small country but a lot more could be done to make cooperation a reality in the US despite its size. Apart from the joint exercises conducted by Homeland Security – usually an annual event at best – the regular training schedule of forces could include observers and participants from other units.

Technological barriers like communication equipment and access to information have to be more centralized.

Training

One of the best ways to improve response is training. Fire Departments should take this seriously. The scene at a bombing will be unlike a fire. The dangers are quite different. Only a well trained force will cope and help save lives without unduly endangering themselves.

The focus on Homeland Security has definitely made a difference. Two years ago few were interested in our training offerings and now we are inundated with requests. However, training in Counter-terrorism should be an ongoing (at the very least annually) part of firefighter training.