{"id":13804,"date":"2016-03-29T08:49:23","date_gmt":"2016-03-29T13:49:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hcstx.org\/?p=13804"},"modified":"2016-03-29T08:49:23","modified_gmt":"2016-03-29T13:49:23","slug":"examining-terrorist-tactics-soft-targets-of-terror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/2016\/03\/29\/examining-terrorist-tactics-soft-targets-of-terror\/","title":{"rendered":"Examining Terrorist Tactics: Soft Targets of Terror"},"content":{"rendered":"

ISIS has “upgraded”the Al Qaeda playbook and determined that several teams of shooters and bombers or suicide bombers working together and attacking multiple SOFT targets simultaneously is much more effective than one big operation against a hard target. Tactically, attacking multiple targets in unison let’s the terrorist take advantage of the mass confusion and the “spreading out “of law enforcement and medical resources. More to come on how to drill and prepare for this very real threat. -SF<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"soft\"<\/p>\n

Bottom Line Up Front:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0In the past week, three suicide bombings killed more than 140 civilians; 72 in Lahore, Pakistan, 41 near Baghdad, Iraq, and 35 in Brussels, Belgium<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0The targets of the attacks\u2014mass transit, a children\u2019s soccer match, and a public park\u2014are designed for open access and enjoyment, and cannot be hardened without fundamentally changing their purpose and utility<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Attacks on soft targets stoke public fear of communal gathering spaces that are meant to enhance social cohesion<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0With neither a shortage of people willing to blow themselves up nor a shortage of explosives with which to do so, the trend of mass-casualty attacks against soft targets will continue.<\/span><\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

The hardest terror strikes are often against the softest targets. <\/b>This truism was demonstrated three times in the last week, with suicide bombings against civilians\u00a0in Brussels<\/span><\/a>\u00a0on March 22,\u00a0near Baghdad<\/span><\/a>\u00a0on March 25, and\u00a0in Lahore<\/span><\/a>\u00a0on March 27. The combined casualties from the three attacks are massive: more than 140 people killed and 700 wounded, many grievously. The attacks were unrelated\u2014the so-called Islamic State<\/span><\/a>\u00a0conducted the attacks in Brussels and near Baghdad; Jamaat ul-Ahrar, a\u00a0Pakistani Taliban<\/span><\/a>\u00a0splinter group, conducted the Lahore bombing\u2014but are all emblematic of what has been, and will continue to be, the preferred style of terror attacks: hitting soft targets with high-explosives.<\/span><\/p>\n

Once a terrorist group has assembled an explosive device, the attack becomes a choice of target and timing. In Iraq, Belgium, and Pakistan, the attackers chose soft targets frequented by civilians, and their timing carefully: an award ceremony, rush hour, and a holiday celebration. The primary purpose of these attacks is to kill and maim as many people as possible; the slaughter of innocents in the most innocuous or idyllic settings eviscerates a society\u2019s sense of security.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There is nothing new about terror strikes against soft targets; what is new is that\u00a0the baseline threat<\/span><\/a>\u00a0is now so high in so many countries. Countries such as Pakistan have battled\u00a0nation-wide terrorism<\/span><\/a>\u00a0for years, with intermittent success at best, amid an overall strategic loss in\u00a0countering the rise of violent extremism<\/span><\/a>. Countries like Belgium face fewer\u00a0pervasive terrorism concerns than Pakistan, but the threat is\u00a0nevertheless real<\/span><\/a>, and growing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unlike symbolic or high-value targets such as government buildings, there is no way to truly harden soft targets. Parks are designed for leisure, and for easy access and movement.\u00a0Mass transit<\/span><\/a>\u00a0is designed to move people efficiently. Both would cease to fulfill their designed functions if onerous security measures were implemented. Furthermore, adding security on the perimeter of a soft target simply changes the strike zone. Terrorists are looking for high body counts; a crowd at a checkpoint for a park or a metro is just as attractive as a crowd inside a park or metro. One needs to look no further than Iraq to see how dangerous crowded checkpoints can be for the civilians they are ostensibly designed to protect.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the consequences of\u00a0mass-casualty attacks<\/span><\/a>\u00a0such as those in Lahore or Brussels is that all crowded spaces become unsafe. Afraid to gather, people stay home, and society splinters ever so slightly more, eroding the societal resilience that is the best and most lasting counterterrorism measure available.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The rise of the Islamic State<\/a><\/span>\u00a0is simply the most high-profile case in what is a global rise in violent extremism. There is no shortage of extremists\u2014usually young males, but increasingly women as well\u2014willing to blow themselves up<\/span><\/a>\u00a0using widely available explosives and designs for suicide vests or other bombs. The video footage of the three attackers at the Brussels airport shows three seemingly ordinary people among countless other ordinary people. Behavior analysis and suspicious pattern recognition do not provide much assistance in these uncontrolled spaces if the attackers maintain a modicum of calm and normalcy. As long as individuals are\u00a0willing to die<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in order to kill scores of innocent people, places of communal gathering\u2014whether mass transit systems or public parks\u2014will continue to be targeted.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read the Original Article at Soufan Group<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ISIS has “upgraded”the Al Qaeda playbook and determined that several teams of shooters and bombers or suicide bombers working together and attacking multiple SOFT targets simultaneously is much more effective than one big operation against a hard target. Tactically, attacking multiple targets in unison let’s the terrorist take advantage of the mass confusion and the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1704,5072,13,74,5699,2417,2413,2726,2990,1189,5543,402,1894,17,272,10,404],"tags":[10709,3391,10710,10711,7284],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13804"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13804\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}