Bodyguards: How to Protect Others - Security Planning

Chapter One - Threat Analysis

No passion so effectively robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear - Edmund Burke

Chapter 1.1 - Targeted Attacks

In Close Protection the terms threat and danger describe the possibility of intended or targeted attacks from assassins, terrorists, kidnappers and people running amok. If you add organised crime to this list, it’s the threat coming from anyone who wants to kill, hurt, kidnap, extort, embarrass or terrorise the Boss.

Most of the contents of this book pertain to terrorism and organised crime. Therefore it is important to put definitions to these violent acts and to the people who commit them. Many people have misconceptions about terrorists and organised criminals that should be cleared up.

Most terrorists and organised criminals are not poor, uneducated or oppressed, nor do they have long hair and wear military uniforms. Many of these people come from middle or upper class families. They might be children of doctors, lawyers, big businessmen and engineers. On the most part they are younger, however, the terrorists who survived the 60s, 70s and 80s, if they are still active, are getting older. Theirs is a very stressful life and even the best-known master terrorists, such as CARLOS have been caught and imprisoned.

Adu Nadal, the ex-leader of the PLO-PFLP has died. Many of the old gangs are still with us and create havoc from time to time with their local systems, such as, PIRA (Provisional Irish Republican Army - Provo’s), IRA (Irish Republican Army), and PLO - Hamas. Many terror organisations worldwide continue their activities, their numbers are growing and Al Qaeda under the leadership of Osama bin Laden seems to be elusive and unstoppable. They have brought violence to an incomprehensible level by involving an enormous number of innocent people. However, their ideals and beliefs, political persuasion, financial motivation or religious ideology don’t matter.

A bodyguard’s job is to keep the Boss clear of any threat. Terrorists may be motivated by political or religious reasons or be motivated by a cause, such as the Green Peace „Save the Whales" campaign. However, as a general rule, different motivations tend to get mixed together. Criminal terrorists are motivated strictly by financial interests, but they often operate under the disguise of political or religious causes. Many terrorists finance their own activities through criminal activities such as robbing financial institutions. Politically motivated terrorists who may start out with pure objectives are apt to turn to violence or a combination of violence, power and making money.

Terrorists may have been good law-abiding citizens once who have gone wrong for all the right reasons. They may be members of an environment organisation or a number of other groups with a cause. Don’t misunderstand; terrorists with a cause are as serious a threat as religious terrorists. International terrorists have a longer history than their domestic brothers. They also have been far more effective, as they are better funded, organised and administered, having learned to network and cooperate to further their own causes and agendas.

Terrorists’ goals and objectives are very clear: to hurt, kill, kidnap, extort, intimidate and destroy lives and property by bombings and assassinations. Clearly, their job is to terrorise their targets whether it’s an individual, a group, a company or a corporation. But if their first-choice target appears to be too tough (hard target) they may opt for a less protected or easier target (soft target).

Terrorist almost always plan their attacks to further a cause, be it of political, religious, personal or other nature. Success is one of the most important elements of terrorism as with every success they appear stronger. Therefore, terrorists can be diverted away from some targets appearing too tough or a hard, to focus on other easier and softer targets. While terrorists are in need of a target to further their cause, it’s inconsequential to them who the target is.

If a terror group decides to hit a target and there is only one target that will serve their purpose, they will bring everything into play and will succeed eventually. However, attacks like these are very costly and carry a very high risk factor. Hitting a very strongly protected target and losing half of the attacking team in the process would mean that the terror group has won a hollow victory. Therefore, suicide bombings have been successful at getting attention with relatively little effort and cost. By strapping on a lot of explosives and walking into a crowd of innocent people they consider enemies; the attackers succeed in making a bold, bloody, very deadly statement.

It’s their suicidal attitude that make suicide bombers (Shaheed) so dangerous to deal with; the attackers don’t ever expect to leave and don’t concern themselves with escape routes. Their options of attack are in numerous, like wandering to the centre of buildings or a town squares to press their button, not having to study the exits or prepare for get-away. More likely, they’ll be evaluating the location by looking for support beams or vehicles’ gas tanks to increase the fallout of the explosion or to create secondary explosions or fires.

The main problem with suicide bombing is that nobody else except the attackers’ group thinks this way. Conflicts aren’t usually fought with one side hazarding massive loss. While war is supposed to be about risk, it’s not usually about certain self-immolation.

The other main problem is that you as a bodyguard will get one shot with a suicide bomber and since the type of person who commits themselves to a one-way mission for a vague sense of glory isn’t usually the sharpest tool in the garage, you can get into quasi-hilarious situations.

Consider some of these suicide snafus - Situation normal all fucked up: In August of 2001, a suicide bomber sitting in a coffee house hit on the waitress, finally lifting his shirt and showing his explosives to get her attention. The waitress immediately screamed terrorist and the coffee shop immediately emptied before the bomber could hit the detonator, killing himself instantly but only slightly injuring 21 people. There have been multiple cases of suicide bombers being snagged at checkpoints, detonating prematurely, and killing absolutely no one. In one case a suicide bomber blew up by himself walking along a road far away from anything or anybody.

There was a movement recently to rename suicide bombers homicide bombers; this kind of thinking betrays the sulkiness of our modern times, trying to solve problems by playing minor word-games. Incidentally, suicide bombing is prohibited in the Quran!

Most of the top professional terror groups are very small in numbers and hence, they cannot afford to lose trusted members and discourage other members. Life is such that most humans often bet on winning teams or join on winning causes. In the 1980s in Italy, the Red Brigade enjoyed an almost-hero status after the kidnapping and subsequent assassination of Alto Moro. The Italian Police were helpless for months, they had no idea who these people were, how they operated and were funded and were basically held hostage for a long time. During this period the group increased its numbers.

However, there is another point. Terrorists and criminals can be discouraged from attacking a target; they can be diverted away from the Bosses appearing well protected, and visibly so, usually in the form of alarm systems, video observation system, the use of dogs and geese, specially prepared vehicles and Close Protection. The Boss must appear visibly strong, sharp, in command and on top of the situation. Hiding all the protective measures and therefore making the Boss look weak and exposed would mean inviting attack. However, this does not mean exposing all the security measures employed by the team or Boss for the world to see. It’s the outward appearance that makes the difference. Take this, for example:

Boss number 1 employs a very serious professional-looking Close Protection team adhering to the principles of route selection and planning and varying their travelling routes. Their physical security measures are good and the Boss travels in what appears to be a specially prepared or armoured car. This is a classic example of hard targeting. The terror group in this situation will probably go after Boss number 2 who employs unprofessional-looking, out-of-shape, non-observant, slow-to-move bodyguards who smoke, drink coffee and drive the Boss to work at the same time, same route every day.

Kidnappers in many areas are not all that different from terrorists. Their actions and their way of doing their business, their way of picking their targets are very similar. Both kidnappers and terrorists are highly motivated, well organised and go to great lengths to research their targets. Both groups avidly collect information, most of which is readily available to them. For example, large companies and corporations issue yearly reports listing the most important executives and the salaries they earn, along with the net worth of the corporation which provides a pool of targets for kidnappers and terrorists to draw from.

In the recent global financial crisis CNN issued a list of their 10 most wanted CEOs and corporate bosses that lined their own pockets with scandalous amounts while the companies and corporations that they were in charge of were losing billions of dollars with thousands of people losing their jobs. This list will prove to be a literal death sentence for most of those people.

News stories relate personal information about individuals who receive awards, information that lists numbers of children, ages, and other personal information. House staff and personnel can be casually talked to and gossipy details obtained. Surveillance can indicate travel habits, the routes preferred and travelled routinely, social activities, work details and the protection measures that are employed. Terrorist and organised criminals are skilled at gathering intelligence. Police raids carried out on terrorist and criminal hide-outs have produced vast amounts of documentation on personal lives of various people, giving the attackers a wide range of possible targets. During this intelligence-gathering phase, terrorists and criminals often include several alternatives along with their preferred and primary target and if this one is too well protected they have other targets at hand, equally well-researched.

Alto Moro, for example, was not the Red Brigade’s primary target, but because of second-rate security measures and sloppy work, he was considered a soft target. Two other men had been the Red Brigade’s primary targets. However, they were decided against as they were too well protected. The Red Brigade chose Alto Moro instead and still reached their political objectives in the end.

Assassins and contract killers, much more than kidnappers and criminals are highly focused professional individuals concentrating on a single person for killing. They may be terrorists, criminals, off-duty policemen or ex-soldiers just trying to make a living.

There are many reasons for assassinations, with politics, religion and money being the most common motives. Religiously motivated assassins and killers are prepared to carry out their missions even when faced with serious injuries or death itself.

The Shaheed suicide bombers are within the most extreme sector of Muslim terror groups today, religiously inspired, given funerals in advance of their suicide missions. They believe this assures them of a place with ALLAH in the heavenly garden, 73 virgins awaiting them on the other side. In addition, their families receive the equivalent of six thousand dollars and gain hero status in their community. Attacks in this regard are highly focused and almost always successful.

Advantages of the Attackers

People who attack others have a number of advantages, often knowing a great deal about their targets, while the targets seldom know anything about their attackers. However, defensive measures call for intelligence information, and most professional bodyguards’ files are bulging with information about every known terror group and major success they have experienced.

Therefore, one of the most important questions for a bodyguard is: how will you know if your Boss is being targeted for an act of violence?

The threat against your Boss may not come from a known terror group. Attackers of any kind, criminal organisation, street gangs or upset and determined individuals always have a very big advantage. They have the ability to remain anonymous and invisible while conducting their surveillance and planning their actions.

The serious and professional attackers will have done their homework on their targets very well. They will possess more information on the target than the target will have on them. If the threat is coming from an area in which other terror attacks have been conducted, it may be possible for the bodyguards to obtain information about how these attacks had been carried out. This will give you some kind of idea what tactics, techniques and what methods of operation are used and could help in planning your defensive counter measures. Terror groups often have a known agenda and plan, announcing their responsibility for acts of terror thus establishing a signature.

Any attacker will have great advantages in numbers and equipment. Terror groups are well financed, as are their criminal brothers. They can bring more resources into play, in form of manpower, equipment and fire power, than the protection people can. Bodyguards and Close Protection personnel, even when working for wealthy individuals and large corporations, are restricted to operate within budgets.

These budgets will never provide for enough bodyguards, equipment or continuation training. If the Boss perceives a threat and feels the need for extra security personnel, he will put the job out for bids in an attempt to save money. Make no mistake - there are more than enough people willing to work for a lot less than you. Economic necessity is a driving force. The proposal that takes the bid may not be the one providing the best protection or security measures. Normally, it will be the offer that provides the most reasonable security for the least amount of money. A Close Protection team will never have as much money as they feel is needed to provide complete, safe and effective protection.

Terror groups on the other hand do not have this problem. Not only do they receive vast sums of money from governments, who support their causes, but they extort money from secretly friendly governments and if they run a little short, they can always rob a bank or kidnap someone.

These types of attackers will have access to munitions that bodyguards can only dream of and could never legally gain access to. On the international market a good supply of weapons is available to criminals, i.e. hand held RPG-7s rockets, sophisticated tracking devices; these are just looking for buyers. Some will end up with unfriendly governments but a certain percentage will go to dissident, radical and extremely violent groups.

Attackers have also the options to rehearse and plan viable attack scenarios. The best that a Boss could do is to develop and rehearse different possibilities and scenarios. For bodyguards this means a lot of what-ifs. Naturally, there are some precedents; case studies of terrorist attacks have given food for thought. There are some given certainties. For instance, most terrorist attacks take place in, on or around vehicles (IEDs –Improvised Explosive Devices or VBIEDs – Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Devices). Therefore, logical conclusions could be drawn from those situations and some defence scenarios against attacks on the Bosses vehicle can be projected. However, adversaries can rehearse their plans until perfect. The attackers are organised and know each other as well, often having worked together on assignments.

The Close Protection team is usually hastily assembled to meet a perceived threat; the individual team members may not know anything about the other team members. If they are very lucky, they will have a day or two to get used to each other to fit their formations and movements together and agree on a common security language. It is not uncommon that bodyguards are brought into big business or corporate situations to meet a short-term need for increased security measures; only to learn that time is being wasted by full-time corporate protection personnel fighting tooth and nail to protect their jobs and positions from the newcomers. The attackers, however, have very clear, rehearsed procedures as to who does just what and who is in command.

Motivation is a strong advantage for the attackers. Assassins, terrorists, kidnappers and criminals spend a lot of time talking about what they are planning to do and most importantly why. They are pumped up and motivated, they are on the edge and rearing to go. The bodyguards or Close Protection teams have a general motivation - usually the