Tactical Approach to Counter Terrorists in Cities

Periodic Report Summary 1 - TACTICS (Tactical Approach to Counter Terrorists in Cities)

Project Context and Objectives:
In recent years the threat of terrorism in urban environments has become an important issue, emphasized by several successfully carried out terrorist attacks (New York, Madrid, London, Mumbai, Oslo, Boston). More recent experiences reported in the global media have served to keep the perception of a terrorist threat alive, such as the failed attempt by the ‘underwear bomber’ Umar Farouk.
Terrorists focus on different types of locations, many of them typically in an urban environment. Examples are the attacks in Mumbai in 2008 - where a hotel, hospital, a movie theatre, a café and other locations were hit - or the initial bombing in Oslo by Breivik. Urban environments are characterized by higher population density and vast metropolitan features as compared to their surrounding areas. Urban areas may be cities, towns or urban agglomerations. These areas are very “attractive” to terrorists since attacking them has a strong impact: high numbers of victims, high emotional and in some cases cultural value. If the Eiffel Tower would be attacked successfully, it would probably result in many victims, but it would also strike many French citizens, and Europeans, in their hearts.
Problem Definition
The fact that it is hard to prevent a known specific threat or a terrorist from acting in urban environments can be explained in different ways. First of all, these locations are mostly crowded, which makes it harder to detect dangerous individuals. Second, many of these urban locations do not have access control, and do not even have specific entrances or exits. Third, different functionalities can be found such as living, working, travelling, shopping, entertainment and education. This makes it more difficult to detect deviancies from “normal”. And last but not least, European Union citizens enjoy freedom of movement and privacy without being bothered too much by security measures making it a challenge to find a balance between security and privacy. Summarizing, urban areas are complex environments with many people with different intentions who display different kinds of behaviour and who enjoy their freedom and privacy.
When a specific threat or an actual terrorist attack occurs, security forces must answer several questions. These questions are relevant to any kind of threat, but are even more difficult to answer when dealing with urban environments:
• What are the signs of an impending attack?
• How can these signs be detected?
• How can the detected signs be fully understood?
• What modus operandi do the signs imply?
• How to know what capabilities are at security forces’ disposal that can be used to prevent or react to an attack?
• How to decide upon the right actions in case of an actual attack?

Security forces might have difficulties in answering these questions for two major reasons. It is difficult to know what the signs of an impending attack are in an urban location, how the signs can be recognised by humans or technological tools, how they can be understood and what modus operandi the signs imply.

Secondly, it is challenging to access quickly enough what capabilities are at their disposal and what other capabilities might be necessary to deal with a specific threat or terrorist attack. They will have to be able to make this assessment quickly to decide upon the right actions, not only to prevent a terrorist attack but also to minimise the impact in terms of casualties, injuries, shock, fear and damages.

A low quality and/or quantity of tools and knowledge regarding these difficulties can lead to undesirable negative effects such as false positives and false negatives. A false positive is a result that is erroneously positive when a situation is normal. An example of a false positive is the death of Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent Brazilian electrician, who was shot by the Metropolitan Police two weeks after the London bombings. A false negative is a result that appears negative but fails to reveal a situation. Examples of this are sadly known to all and include 9/11, as well as the Madrid and London bombings. Like false positives, false negatives have financial costs and deplete available resources and diminish public confidence.

Concept
TACTICS establishes a level of coordination, communication, awareness and efficiency that does not currently exist in European counterterrorism measures. To minimize the occurrence of false negative and positives, there is a strong need to improve strategies to counter terrorist threat and attacks in urban environments. Key in the work of TACTICS is the unique system concept and architecture and the prevention of different kinds of biases.
1. to make security forces capable of responding quicker, without being biased in decision making and to be more precise in the kind of information they request and the orders they send out by providing expert knowledge at the fingertips of the security services professionals at the time of an actual threat in urban environments (threat management);
2. to improve preparedness of security forces by decomposing threats into observable terrorist behaviours specific for urban environments (threat decomposition);
3. to improve the capabilities at security forces’ disposal by improving their management, efficiency and their cooperation in urban environments (capability management);
4. to facilitate a cross-European approach by offering a 3-levelled strategy on the tactical, operational and strategic level.
With these goals, the project TACTICS offers an answer to the FP7 Security Call, on Topic SEC-2011.1.2-1 “Strategies for countering a terrorist attack in an urban environment.”
Timeframe
The TACTICS timeframe starts (1) right after security or intelligence forces are alerted to a specific threat or (2) when an attack is currently happening or has just taken place. In both cases only when the proper (local) authorities have decided to do so. The TACTICS timeframe ends when the proper authorities decide that the specific threat is over. TACTICS focuses on generating situational awareness directly before, during and directly after a (potential) attack, and does not cover the intelligence process. Therefore, prevention in this case, means the actions that can be carried out right after a threat alert is given to prevent a terrorist from succeeding. The TACTICS system will not be a continuous procedure, but will only be used during a specific threat alert.
Generic Concept of operations
When security forces are alerted to a specific terrorist threat, their main goal is to prevent or mitigate an actual attack. This process is called threat management and is supported by two sub-processes: threat decomposition and capabilities management. To illustrate the type of work done within these processes, TACTICS introduces three roles: the Threat Manager (TM), the Threat Decomposition Manager (TDM) and the Capabilities Manager (CM). They work as a team to prevent or mitigate terrorist attacks (Figure 1.3):
• The TM is responsible for making decisions based on the complete operational picture.
• The TDM is responsible for providing knowledge on terrorism, terrorist groups and modus operandi.
• The CM is responsible for providing knowledge on the current capabilities that security forces have at their disposal at the threat locations(s).

TACTICS will support each of these managers in responding more quickly and in a more structured, efficient way to a specific threat by delivering a: Powerful TACTICS Decision Support System that supports the prevention of threats and/or minimises the consequences of a terrorist attack in an urban environment.

Project Results:
The work performed so far consists of creating a common view on the TACTICS problem definition and the solution we are aiming at.

In the first half year of the project possible attack scenarios were sketched and two were chosen together with the end users that were consulted during the End User workshop in December 2012. The TACTICS concept of operations was also simulated with this group.
Using the output of this work, the TACTICS system architecture was designed in more detail: both the vision on a TACTICS-type-of-system, and the actual system architecture of our concrete validation system. This included specifying what privacy-by-design, user centred design means both for this kind of systems, and for the concrete validation system. For a limited set of emerging surveillance methods and technologies their potential contribution to the TACTICS concept was described.

In the second half of this reporting period a large number of historical attacks were analysed in a structured non-biased way. The (non) functional requirements for the three components TM, TDM and CM were designed and documented. The data fusion engine was defined and a non-biased method for both threat analysis and capability analysis has been developed.

Throughout the project ethical aspects were taken into account and this is reflected in an ethical paragraph in the majority of the deliverables.

The advisory board was consulted. They were impressed with the progress beyond state of the art, and by the methodological non-biased approach. The advisory board noted explicitly that the structured overview could be very helpful with their work.

Potential Impact:
TACTICS aims at increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of end users and stakeholders:
End user focus
TACTICS increases effectiveness and efficiency of the following end user responsibilities in the case of the prevention of a specific threat or dealing with an actual attack:
• Police officers: patrolling the streets and other public places, maintaining public order, providing assistance in emergencies.
• Military Police: maintaining public order, providing assistance in ceremonial duties, personal protection.
• Private security: personal protection, protection of small companies (e.g. shops), protection of bigger closed urban environments (e.g. malls, concert halls or universities).

TACTICS increases effectiveness efficiency of the following stakeholder responsibilities that are relevant for the prevention of a specific threat or dealing with an actual attack:
• National Coordinators for Counterterrorism: analysing intelligence and other information, policy development, coordinating anti-terrorist security measures.
• Local Municipalities: managing safety and security in their own town or city.
• National Security Services: investigating individuals and organisations, promoting the security of vital sectors, gathering international intelligence and compiling risk and threat analyses.
• Pan-European Authorities: promoting information sharing to address free movement of persons and ensure European-wide public safety.

List of Websites:
www.fp7-tactics.eu

Periodic Report Summary 1 - TACTICS (Tactical Approach to Counter Terrorists in Cities)

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