Review of On-Scene Management of Mass-Casualty Attacks

Background: The scene of a mass-casualty attack (MCA) entails a crime scene, a hazardous space, and a great number of people needing medical assistance. Public transportation has been the target of such attacks and involves a high probability of generating mass casualties. The review aimed to investigate challenges for on-scene responses to MCAs and suggestions made to counter these challenges, with special attention given to attacks on public transportation and associated terminals. Methods: Articles were found through PubMed and Scopus, “relevant articles” as defined by the databases, and a manual search of references. Inclusion criteria were that the article referred to attack(s) and/or a public transportation-related incident and issues concerning formal on-scene response. An appraisal of the articles’ scientific quality was conducted based on an evidence hierarchy model developed for the study. Results: One hundred and five articles were reviewed. Challenges for command and coordination on scene included establishing leadership, inter-agency collaboration, multiple incident sites, and logistics. Safety issues entailed knowledge and use of personal protective equipment, risk awareness and expectations, cordons, dynamic risk assessment, defensive versus offensive approaches, and joining forces. Communication concerns were equipment shortfalls, dialoguing, and providing information. Assessment problems were scene layout and interpreting environmental indicators as well as understanding setting-driven needs for specialist skills and resources. Triage and treatment difficulties included differing triage systems, directing casualties, uncommon injuries, field hospitals, level of care, providing psychological and pediatric care. Transportation hardships included scene access, distance to hospitals, and distribution of casualties. Conclusion: Commonly encountered challenges during unintentional incidents were added to during MCAs, implying specific issues for safety, assessment, triage, and treatment, which require training. Effectively increasing readiness for MCAs likely entail struggles to overcome fragmentation between the emergency services and the broader crisis management system as well as enabling critical and prestige-less, context-based assessments of needed preparatory efforts

Review of On-Scene Management of Mass-Casualty Attacks

Background: The scene of a mass-casualty attack (MCA) entails a crime scene, a hazardous space, and a great number of people needing medical assistance. Public transportation has been the target of such attacks and involves a high probability of generating mass casualties. The review aimed to investigate challenges for on-scene responses to MCAs and suggestions made to counter these challenges, with special attention given to attacks on public transportation and associated terminals. Methods: Articles were found through PubMed and Scopus, "relevant articles" as defined by the databases, and a manual search of references. Inclusion criteria were that the article referred to attack(s) and/or a public transportation-related incident and issues concerning formal on-scene response. An appraisal of the articles' scientific quality was conducted based on an evidence hierarchy model developed for the study. Results: One hundred and five articles were reviewed. Challenges for command and coordination on scene included establishing leadership, inter-agency collaboration, multiple incident sites, and logistics. Safety issues entailed knowledge and use of personal protective equipment, risk awareness and expectations, cordons, dynamic risk assessment, defensive versus offensive approaches, and joining forces. Communication concerns were equipment shortfalls, dialoguing, and providing information. Assessment problems were scene layout and interpreting environmental indicators as well as understanding setting-driven needs for specialist skills and resources. Triage and treatment difficulties included differing triage systems, directing casualties, uncommon injuries, field hospitals, level of care, providing psychological and pediatric care. Transportation hardships included scene access, distance to hospitals, and distribution of casualties. Conclusion: Commonly encountered challenges during unintentional incidents were added to during MCAs, implying specific issues for safety, assessment, triage, and treatment, which require training. Effectively increasing readiness for MCAs likely entail struggles to overcome fragmentation between the emergency services and the broader crisis management system as well as enabling critical and prestige-less, context-based assessments of needed preparatory efforts

Designing and Operating Safe and Secure Transit Systems: Assessing Current Practices in the United States and Abroad, MTI Report 04-05

Public transit systems around the world have for decades served as a principal venue for terrorist acts. Today, transit security is widely viewed as an important public policy issue and is a high priority at most large transit systems and at smaller systems operating in large metropolitan areas. Research on transit security in the United States has mushroomed since 9/11; this study is part of that new wave of research. This study contributes to our understanding of transit security by (1) reviewing and synthesizing nearly all previously published research on transit terrorism; (2) conducting detailed case studies of transit systems in London, Madrid, New York, Paris, Tokyo, and Washington, D.C.; (3) interviewing federal officials here in the United States responsible for overseeing transit security and transit industry representatives both here and abroad to learn about efforts to coordinate and finance transit security planning; and (4) surveying 113 of the largest transit operators in the United States. Our major findings include: (1) the threat of transit terrorism is probably not universal—most major attacks in the developed world have been on the largest systems in the largest cities; (2) this asymmetry of risk does not square with fiscal politics that seek to spread security funding among many jurisdictions; (3) transit managers are struggling to balance the costs and (uncertain) benefits of increased security against the costs and (certain) benefits of attracting passengers; (4) coordination and cooperation between security and transit agencies is improving, but far from complete; (5) enlisting passengers in surveillance has benefits, but fearful passengers may stop using public transit; (6) the role of crime prevention through environmental design in security planning is waxing; and (7) given the uncertain effectiveness of antitransit terrorism efforts, the most tangible benefits of increased attention to and spending on transit security may be a reduction in transit-related person and property crimes

The factors which influence the selection of physical targets by terrorist groups

The aim of terrorism is to influence a group of people or institutions - the psychological target or targets - by attacking the appropriate physical targets in order to prompt the desired response. Several factors influence the selection of physical targets by non-state terrorist groups. These include the ideology of the terrorist group concerned, the strategy adopted by the group and its capabilities, its need to take account of external opinion - including that of supporters, the measures adopted to protect likely targets, and the security environment within which the terrorist group operates. In addition, decision-making is affected by the dynamics within the group which are in turn affected by the psychological pressures of clandestinity and the frequent risk of death or capture which many terrorists run. The relationship between these factors varies from group to group, which is inevitable given the idiosyncratic nature of most terrorist groups, and the different circumstances in which they find themselves. However, it can generally be said that ideology sets out the moral framework within which terrorists operate - and which determines whether terrorists judge it to be legitimate to attack a range of target. After this, the determination of which targets it will actually be beneficial to attack depends upon the strategy which the group has adopted as a means of achieving its political objectives. The determination of their strategic objectives depends upon the effects which the terrorists hope their attacks will achieve. Thus, strategy further refines the range of targets initially delimited by the group's ideology. The other factors mentioned tend to act as constraints upon the group, partly - as with security measures - in restricting them from carrying out the types of attacks which they would desire but also in encouraging them to carry out attacks on certain targets in the hope of gaining benefits such as the approval of their supporters, or of gaining publicity for their cause. Underlying all of this is the human factor, whereby relations within the group, the impact of psychological pressure, and individual differences in moral judgements may influence the targets chosen by terrorists

The use of armed drones by the United States against Al-Qaeda and its ‘associates’: a study of law and policy arising from a ‘State of exception’

The use of armed drones in undeclared warzones pose various challenges to well established rules of international law. The US drone policies rest on shaky legal grounds, are ambiguous in nature and have been justified by reinterpretation of international law. The UK government’s use of drone strike in Syria shows a new problematic trend. The frequency of armed drones by few states outside area of active hostilities has normalised the use of force and generated a permanent state of exception. Mainstream research on targeted killings has focused on legality of US strikes in Pakistan but largely ignored the problematic role of Pakistan, in particular, the military violence of the Pakistani military in the tribal areas. The case study of Pakistan highlights that the drone strikes are directed against a population that is marginalised within the targeted state. The study argues that the special status of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) has allowed the US to conduct drone strikes without any accountability. The US has been targeting groups with varying degree of closeness to Al-Qaeda in multiple territories based in Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia and Syria. The study established with the help of control test devised by the International Court of Justice in Nicaragua case that the associations between Al-Qaeda and these groups or organisations is very loose. Targeting groups who pose no threat to the US is both illegal and counterproductive. Therefore the extraterritorial targeting of terrorists who pose no threat to the US is a flawed strategy and must be reviewed

Homeland Security Affairs Journal, Volume 14 / 2018

Homeland Security Affairs is the peer-reviewed online journal of the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS), providing a forum to propose and debate strategies, policies, and organizational arrangements to strengthen U.S. homeland security. The instructors, participants, alumni, and partners of CHDS represent the leading subject matter experts and practitioners in the field of homeland security. Homeland Security Affairs captures the best of their collective work, as well as that of scholars and practitioners throughout the nation, through peer-reviewed articles on new strategies, policies, concepts and data relating to every aspect of Homeland Security. These articles constitute not only the “smart practices” but also the evolution of Homeland Security as an emerging academic and professional discipline. Sponsored by the U. S. Department of Homeland Security’s National Preparedness Directorate, FEMA, CHDS is part of the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS). CHDS provides graduate and executive education programs to the nation’s homeland security leaders, including governors, mayors, senior local, state, federal and private sector officials and select military officers. CHDS also operates the Homeland Security Digital Library, which is the authoritative tool for research in the field of homeland security policy and strategy.Sponsored by the U. S. Department of Homeland Security’s National Preparedness Directorate, FEMA, CHDS is part of the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS)

Freedom and Order : How Democratic Governments Restrict Liberties After Terrorist Attacks--and Why Sometimes They Don\u27t

https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/all_books/1255/thumbnail.jp

The mitigation of primary blast injury

While effective against penetrating threats, ballistic armour may not mitigate primary blast injuries inflicted by the pressure wave. It remains poorly understood whether such armour improves blast clinical outcome for the wearer. The aim of this work was to deepen understanding of the nature of modern primary blast injuries, potential materials appropriate for personal blast protection and the influence of hard ballistic plates on expected survivability. The modern prevalence and severity of blast in the civilian environment was investigated by carrying out a meta-analysis of injured populations. The occurrence of primary blast injuries strongly depends on the ventilation of the attack environment. As the rate of pulmonary injury for Improvised Explosive Device attacks is approximately 9%, it is apparent that the blast attenuating capability of thoracic armour is of importance. The blast mitigation performance of polyurethane-based foams, hydrogels and a hard ballistic plate were assessed using a shock tube. The foams and hydrogels were manufactured and mechanically characterised across strain rates from 0.01–1600/s covering regimes relevant to both load-bearing and blast loading scenarios. While reticulated polyurethane foam enhanced the peak blast pressure, the hydrogels dissipated blast energy through brittle fracture. A ballistic gelatine human thorax surrogate was used to evaluate the clinical significance of the mitigation, and the blast loading of the gelatine computationally modelled. The hydrogels yielded a 90% reduction of peak pressure compared to the unarmoured case, comparable to values reported for water-based mitigation systems. By comparison, the addition of a ballistic plate with zero air gap increased lethality from values up to 50% in the unarmoured case to values up to 99%. Under the highest amplitude and duration blast loading, this corresponded to an increase of the delivered peak pressure and impulse to the surrogate of 52% and 27%, respectively, compared to the unarmoured case. Introduction of an air gap between the surrogate and armour further increased the lethality risk to near 99% over the full range of loading conditions due to blunt impact of the plate. However, mitigation could be achieved by combining the ballistic plate with a reticulated foam backing layer greater than a critical thickness.Open Acces