Situational Awareness: Terrorist Attack Cycle

Recently, I read an article on situational awareness, A Primer on Situational Awareness by Scott Stewart – STRATFOR Global Intelligence. What stood out was the cycle the “bad guys” use to conduct their attacks. It is very important to recognize that criminal and terrorist attacks do not materialize out of left field. The bad guys follow a process when planning their actions and this process has several distinct steps. The same steps apply to nearly all crimes and terrorist acts.

Of course, the time will vary between steps. In a complex crime like a kidnapping or car bombing there will be more time used to plan, select, prepare, deploy and reach their end state, compared to simple crimes like purse-snatching or shoplifting, where the steps are rushed through within the blink of an eye-minutes if not seconds to decide whether to follow through with the act or not. Regardless of the crime, the same steps are usually followed. I intentionally left out the media exploitation step because the majority of crimes, the bad guys do not want to be caught or make a “political statement” of their actions.

The majority of the bad guys conduct surveillance in order to be successful. They focus on patterns, driving to and from work, daily routines, seek out weaknesses, and possibly conduct surveillance on more than one day or time period to be sure they are successful. It can be as simple as driving around the neighborhood and ringing the door bell a couple of times. No answer, find a weak point on the house to break in and in seconds the house is robbed. It can be as complex as targeting some one for kidnapping. Finding out where they work, taking note at the type of the security, if any the person has, either a security system at home or personal firearm(s) they carry or don’t carry.

Being aware of this cycle helps you plan your protective protocols. In the near future we will begin to talk about Counter-Surveillance.