Antiterrorism and Threat Response: Planning and Implementation

One of the single greatest challenges to security professionals in the 21st century is terrorism. In the last several years, we have heard a lot about the importance of preparing for terrorist attacks. This book offers a way to prevent terrorist attacks. Providing security managers with a clear and simple methodology to protect their organizations, Antiterrorism and Threat Response uses an adaptation of the U.S. Department of Defense’s antiterrorism fundamentals and applies it to the private sector to protect companies, facilities, and infrastructures. The book’s antiterrorism planning strategies enable security professionals to seize the initiative away from terrorists--setting them off balance and keeping them off balance--thereby disrupting their planning cycle and thwarting attack.

The book helps security managers to:

• Understand the terrorist attack planning cycle
• Conduct a terrorism threat vulnerability assessment
• Develop an observation plan and the corresponding verification plan
• Understand how surveillance detection works
• Learn how pattern analysis wheels can be used to find weaknesses in security operations
• Appreciate the role of random antiterrorism measures and learn how to develop them
• Establish response plans for a wide variety of contingencies related to terrorist attack
• Adapt this methodology to maritime operations against piracy, individual protection, and travel security in high-risk environments
• Work with other security departments, the police, and the public to create infrastructure protection zones that will enhance the detection of suspicious events and reduce the likelihood of terrorist attack

The book aims to show that terrorists are not defeated by technology alone, but instead by collaboration and the timely passage of relevant information and intelligence. Terrorism is, above all, an act of communication. The terrorists communicate to us through their acts and their carefully crafted communiqués. Security professionals need to send the terrorists a clear and simple message in the language they understand: You will not succeed here.

Ross Johnson (North Carolina State University, USA.)