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posted by martyb on Sunday June 04 2017, @08:53PM   Printer-friendly
from the is-there-a-solution-that-is-less-bad-than-the-problem? dept.

If it seems like every week, there's another terrorist attack – well, you're not wrong. According to one crowdsourcing map, there have been over 500 attacks around the world since the start of 2017, with over 3,500 fatalities. For a period in 2016, ISIS-initiated attacks were occurring, on average, every 84 hours.

Despite improvements in methods and coordination among law enforcement agencies over the past 25 years, they're still hamstrung in a number of ways. With large public gatherings of people becoming more attractive targets for terrorists, what are the best strategies moving forward?

[...] But despite huge budgets and the presence of thousands of added security personnel, it's virtually impossible to prevent a determined terrorist, or guarantee absolute safety. While security efforts for events like the Olympic Games have escalated, terrorists today no longer wait for major events that draw global interest.

[...] The odds are in favor of terrorists. All they have to do is succeed once, no matter how many times they try. For public safety professionals to be fully successful, they have to prevent 100 percent of the terror attempts. It's a number to aspire to, but even the most experienced countries fighting terror – such as Israel and the U.K. – can't measure up to this standard.

[...] These days, it's necessary to consider any place where crowds congregate as vulnerable "soft targets" for the attackers. To better prepare for securing soft targets (and this isn't to say threats against "hard targets," like planes, buildings and infrastructure, have diminished) law enforcement agencies must improve coordination among one another, whether it's via intelligence, information sharing and training. And then there's the need for deconfliction, which refers to avoiding self-defeating behavior – from interagency rivalries and poor communication to insufficient coordination – by people who are on the same side.

[...] Given that there is no way to guarantee complete safety, and that the threat assessment expects more attacks, there are two more elements that ought to receive more attention: community resilience and community policing.

https://theconversation.com/how-can-we-better-protect-crowds-from-terrorism-78443

[Related]:

1996 Atlanta Olympic Games: https://www.britannica.com/event/Atlanta-Olympic-Games-bombing-of-1996

Secure Airport Design: https://skift.com/2016/07/04/how-smart-airport-design-can-make-spaces-more-secure/

Do you agree with this assessment of the security situation ? What do you think could be done to mitigate the effects of such asymmetric warfare ?


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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @09:04PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @09:04PM (#520361)

    yeah that's pretty much my train of thought as well. these people will never integrate into our society, get rid of them one way or another.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @01:50AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @01:50AM (#520503)

    The US should have learned by now that it can't win a war, when it voluntarily ties it's own hands behind it's back.

    Despise Trump all you like, but he told us how to win the war against "Islamic extremists". Stop Muslims coming into the US. If there are no Muslims here, then Muslims won't be causing trouble. It's really that simple.

    Prevent them coming in, ship out the ones we have, and kill the ones who make trouble.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday June 05 2017, @03:07AM (2 children)

      by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Monday June 05 2017, @03:07AM (#520550) Journal

      Eeeeeexcept that Drumpf's proposed ban specifically exempts the exact countries that have actually been committing terrorism. If he were proposing to ban all Muslims, everywhere, that would still be dumb as hell but it would make more sense than banning the ones from the countries that HAVEN'T committed acts of terror against us and passing the ones that have.

      --
      I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @05:30AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @05:30AM (#520581)

        Yeah. That's three terrorist attacks in the UK done by locals, and they're still being given US visas!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @06:22AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @06:22AM (#520591)

        The ones that are exempt, are only so on paper. Whenever they arrive and make any trouble. The police may shoot them because they feared for their life.