4040-E-Terrorism-ex-v5.pdf

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Counterterrorism Exercise- 5Ed

Seminar Exercise : Counterterrorism

1. The aims of this exercise are to give you the opportunity to discuss and define the nature of terrorism and to analyze and select courses of action in response to acts that might be considered terrorism. Working in small groups you will be asked to:

• Produce a working definition of terrorism

• Decide on the most appropriate measures to address the incidents described in some of the case studies

• Assess the advantages and disadvantages, both nationally and internationally, of your selected measures

• Make a short presentation on your findings

2. Neither you nor your team members are playing any specific roles or representing any particular government or country.

3. Your definition of terrorism should be agreed upon by all members of your group and should include examples of specific acts that illustrate and clarify the definition.

4. Case Studies. After you complete your definition of terrorism, consider the “acts of terror” described below. Consider both immediate and longer-term responses and domestic, multi-agency and international, bilateral or multilateral measures. Among the questions you may wish to address are the following: are the incidents examples of terrorism or conventional criminal activity; what further information might you wish to obtain before making your decisions; what role is there for the police, intelligence, armed and border security services; what about the influence of domestic political considerations and media coverage? Prepare to give reasons for your suggestions. There is no particular conflict or country context to consider. Instead you should examine the theoretical responses to the various acts of “terror” and be prepared to spell out the potential advantages and disadvantages of your selected countermeasures.

• An unknown assailant mailed a letter bomb to the elected mayor of a small town. The bomb explosion blinded her secretary. Your country currently has no significant ethnic or political unrest, but the number of international criminal cartels operating on your territory has grown in recent years. The mayor had no known connections with these groups. Initial forensic evidence suggests that the bomb was not sophisticated.

• A separatist militant, who is serving a life sentence for murdering two policemen in a car bombing, has gone on a hunger strike to gain “political status.” He says that he is a prisoner of war. His stance has some support both at home and abroad from members of the ethnic group that he claims to represent. Amnesty International recently criticized your country’s treatment of prisoners held for so called political crimes.

• A Wahhabi religious lawyer, who is a citizen of, and resident in, your country has issued a Fatwa ordering Muslims to participate in a Jihad against all governments, including your own, that are allies of the United States. However, the religious leader has not personally participated in any violent protests or attacks.

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• A gang of skinheads from a run-down industrial town, who call themselves The Sons of

Horst Wessel, have been beating and robbing people with a Middle Eastern or African appearance. Often these attacks have coincided with football matches played locally by their hometown’s team. Recently the gang beat a Nigerian student to death and the incident received widespread national and international press coverage. A spokesman for the group interviewed by a freelance reporter said that they wanted to purify the country by driving out all foreigners.

• Islamic militants based in a remote part of a neighboring country recently attacked border police stations on your territory. A number of border guards were killed in the ensuing firefights before the militants withdrew. Although local Moslems are largely moderate, the militants say they will continue their attacks until all the secular governments in the region are overthrown and replaced by Islamic theocracies. The government of the neighboring country claims that its security forces are too weak to deal with the militants, but at the moment is not willing to sanction action by foreign security forces on its territory.

• Your department of homeland security, recently received intelligence from Interpol that a transnational criminal cartel was going to smuggle highly enriched uranium* across your territory by road or rail en route to an unknown destination in the Middle East. Your border/customs police are highly professional and have good relations with those of bordering countries, but due to financial cutbacks they are severely overstretched. The government is anxious to avoid transit delays across your country as it might have a negative impact on the economy.

5. Presentations. Each team will be asked to brief its definition of terrorism and selected case studies’ findings and conclusions to the seminar leader and other seminar members.

* Uranium is a mixture of three isotopes U-234, U-235 and U-238. Most nuclear reactor fuel and weapon components are made with uranium in which the U-235 concentration has been increased by a process called enrichment. Fifteen pounds of enriched uranium are sufficient to construct a 1-kiloton nuclear device using the implosion technique. Such a device would be four times more powerful than the explosive energy of the two jets striking the World Trade Center. Fifteen pounds of enriched uranium could be placed in a lead shielded cylinder measuring roughly 4.7 inches (12 centimeters) by 1.2 inches (3 centimeters). With sufficient lead shielding the highly enriched uranium would not be detected by X–Ray machines or simple radiation detection devices.