This morning Martin Masiuk posted
a comment on the DomPrep discussion group on LinkedIn.com about Saturday’sblog post about the Algerian terrorist attack. He asks a very appropriate
question; could this happen here? The short answer is yes, but…..
Hostage Situation
Most news reports have described this as a hostage taking
attack that was only partially successful. The exfiltration of the hostages to
a base in Mali did not happen, so the apparently al Qaeda related terrorists
ended up with a hostage stand-off that ended badly. A hostage taking situation
of this sort is less likely (but hardly impossible) to occur in the United
States as there is a much lower possibility of the exfiltration of the hostages
to an out-of-country secure area.
Having said that, a hostage taking situation at a high-risk
chemical facility is far from being a totally unlikely scenario. As long as the
attackers were not concerned about walking away from the situation, it might be
the best way to carry out a high-profile attack on such a facility. Such an
attack could serve two purposes; it would serve to keep the attackers in the
public eye for the length of the attack (great publicity) and it would allow
demolition teams the time necessary to properly emplace a large number of
explosive devices in just the right spots for the most effective destruction of
the facility.
Public Exposure
The longer that the hostage takers could keep negotiating
with the FBI (certainly the action agency for an attack like this) the longer
the story would stay in the world-wide press. Until it became obvious that
there were going to be large numbers of hostages killed (the definition of ‘large’
would depend on the size and type of facility being attacked) or that the
attackers were prepared (both mentally and physically) to destroy the facility
at any moment, negotiations would certainly continue.
Now the only thing that the attackers could expect to gain
from such negotiations would be a guarantee of free passage to jail. No
administration would long survive allowing any kind of deal that provided for
any other sort of result. But the longer the discussion toward the FBI’s goal
of total surrender of the attackers took, the better it would be for the
terrorists from the view of free publicity.
End Game
It is unlikely that any committed terrorist would actually
surrender at the end of the day. The most likely end to the situation would be
a government led assault on the facility to free the remaining hostages and
prevent the destruction of the facility, or the terrorists destroying the facility,
the hostages and becoming martyrs to their cause. Either situation would
ultimately serve the terrorists cause of striking terror into the populous and
gaining publicity for their cause.
Prevention is the Only Good Solution
Since neither end-game is desirable, the best way to handle
this situation is to prevent it. A hostage taking attack like this is not going
to be conducted on the spur of the moment. It would require a great deal of
preparation, reconnaissance and practice. All of these activities lend
themselves to the detection and disruption of the attack well before it happened.
This is the type thing that the FBI and law enforcement
agencies have shown themselves to be well versed in, but they do require a
certain amount of cooperation from facility management and the local public. As
much as one might think that the DHS “See something, say something” campaign is
simplistic it is exactly the type of information that one receives from such
programs that provides the needed intel to prevent attacks like this.
Insider Information and Assistance
Recent news reports indicate that at least some of the
attackers were BP employees and were thus able to provide the attack planners
with key information about facility security. This would be an important aspect
of any planning for this type of operation. Inserting people into the facility
either as employees or contractors provides for the best type of reconnaissance
information.
In light of this, it is very disappointing that DHS ISCD has
still not published their plan for vetting high-risk chemical facility
employees against the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB). While this wouldn’t
necessarily catch all would be terrorists, it would catch some. Not having this
in place with the 5th anniversary of the establishment of the CFATS
program fast approaching is the height of bureaucratic silliness.
BTW: A hostage taking scenario is not one of the terrorist
attack scenarios used by DHS to evaluate CFATS site security plans.
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