Security issue: Mass killing

Security issue: Mass killing

Mass killing is the crime of purposely causing harm or death to a group of (unknown) people in order to make a statement or to influence the public opinion. This threat is exerted out of wilful action by either terrorists or criminal activists.

Description

We see that the subject of fanatics (terrorists or criminal activists) can be either persons, objects, or both. This category of security issues focusses on the threat directed towards people. When directed at objects, it falls under the category of destruction by fanatics.

The motives for destructing objects by fanatics can mostly be found in the amount of attention that this yields. This motive gives a very good clue of who and what locations might be potential targets for fanatics: not only should an attack yield a fair amount of attention, but also it should be the kind of attention that would help the fanatics' 'cause'. Depending on the fanatics faction, this can entail a wide variety of reactions; for some factions, negative attention is not unwanted. We see this in the 11 September 2001 attack on the New York Trade Center. Although this generated almost uniformly negative responses in the western world, this was received with joy by the responsible faction (al-Qaeda).

Sometimes, an object is used as a force multiplier for an attack directed at people. This can be used on urban objects if:

• the object can be potentially harmful to humans (such as chemical plants, oil/gas refineries and storages, nuclear plants, etcetera)
• the object provides an essential service to the well-being of humans and belongs to the critical infrastructure. In this case, its failure can bring harm to the people.

The presence of such an object in the vicinity of large groups of people can raise the attractiveness and attainability for an attack by fanatics and therefore increase the risk.

Attributing circumstances

• the predictable presence of large groups of people
• the predictable presence of a group of people who's death or harm would have great impact
• location perceived as attainable target

Impacts

• deaths, wounded
• psychological trauma
• reduced perception of safety

Measures

• intelligence
• surveillance
• reaction force

MAP

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