“...if their strategy remains a vague abstract concept, and their readiness to kill and die appals and mystifies us, at the tactical level they are anything but irrational...”
the major one. Greater vigilance at airports had a deterrent effect on terrorists and this is borne out by the fact that, by the 1980s, terrorists were choosing to launch their attacks from airports with poor security records. The successful rescue operations at Entebbe in 1976, Mogadishu in 1977 and at the Iranian Embassy in London in 1980 also showed that western governments were prepared to deal with hostage situations using deadly force. Whatever one’s views on any political issue highlighted by a terrorist group, or of the relative merits of their techniques, it can be said that these terrorists were behaving rationally. They had aims that were concrete, recognisable and achievable – to them, at least. On the whole they wanted to live and fight another day. For most of them, martyrdom was something that was admired but not pursued. This may explain the shift from seizing
aircraft to destroying them in flight. There is little danger to the terrorist who can get a bomb onto an airliner, but does not board it himself. Also, the motivation for some terrorists shifted from publicising a political claim to simple revenge. The destruction of Air India Flight 182 in 1985, with the loss of 329 lives, was intended as revenge for the Indian government’s storming of the Golden Temple in Amritsar the previous year. The Lockerbie bombing in 1988 is widely seen as a Libyan reprisal for the American bombing raids on Tripoli in 1986. The emergence of al Qaeda and its
kindred spirits changed everything again. Compared to previous terrorist organisations, its operatives do not behave in a way that is clearly rational. Their aims are not tangible and few but the most convinced would see them as attainable. They also abandoned any pretence of moral constraint. Most terrorist groups shied away from mass civilian casualties, for tactical, strategic or ethical reasons. Others accepted them as a necessary evil. Al Qaeda pursues and rejoices in them. Finally, they are willing to die in the
Top left: Initiating a chemical reaction in-flight is one way of negating the need to infilitrate a complete IED on board
Right: Suicidal terrorists may put the finishing touches to their explosive devices in-flight
August 2012 Aviationsecurityinternational
www.asi-mag.com 39
prosecution of their operations. However, if their strategy remains a vague abstract concept, and their readiness to kill and die appals and mystifies us, at the tactical level they are anything but irrational. We may be puzzled by what they want and horrified by their methodology but they are clever and imaginative when it comes to the nuts and bolts of doing it. They are also human, and that makes them predictable. We can be just as adept doing what we do.
The Lockerbie bomb and the Air India device were concealed within portable radios. These offered a number of advantages to the terrorists. They were easy to open and close without undue signs of interference.
Inside, they
had voids that could conceal enough explosives to destroy an aircraft in flight. They contained batteries, wires and electronic components, which could be used to conceal the presence of the IED’s power sources, circuitry and switches. The IEDs were concealed using two techniques, which can be called ‘clutter’ and ‘misrepresentation’. With clutter, the mass of legitimate components serve to obscure the bomb parts. If examined, the IED components may be missed because
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