Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
teaching. He spent several years analyzing many attacks that involved
placing a car bomb on a vehicle. To his surprise, he found that in almost
all of the incidents, loss of life could have been prevented easily. In almost
all of the incidents he reviewed, the attacker placed the bomb somewhere
it would have been very easy to find if the driver had been trained where
to look and had made a car inspection a routine precaution. Why is this
so? Can't expert bombers hide an explosive in a place that can't be read-
ily observed?
To address this point, we need to remember a few facts. First, criminals
and/or terrorists have a limited amount of time in which to operate and
to install a bomb. Terrorists generally gain access to the car while it is
parked in a public place. They need to work quickly because a passerby
might observe them while they are attempting to place the device. Even
terrorists get nervous and worry about the risk of detection and arrest.
Consequently, assailants try to limit the amount of time they are exposed
to reduce their risk of getting caught. Second, criminals and terrorists
both assume that people are not checking their cars anyway. Therefore,
why risk detection by doing something that is complicated and time con-
suming like opening the car's hood and planting the bomb inside the
engine compartment? That would only increase their risk of exposure
without greatly enhancing the success of the mission. One of the easiest
ways to bomb a vehicle is to place the explosive in a crumpled-up brown
paper bag and to put it under the car. The bag looks like just another
piece of trash, perhaps the remnants of someone's lunch. Bombers wait
for the victim to return to his or her vehicle and then remotely detonate
the explosive. Often they use a cell phone for this purpose. Cell phones
operate on batteries. Devices that use batteries cause electrical current to
flow. It is easy to redirect this current to an electronic detonator. All
bombers have to do is call the number of the phone attached to the bomb,
and it will detonate.
How do you check your vehicle? You do not need any special skills to
prevent an attack. All you need to do is to learn which areas of your vehi-
cle are likely spots for a bomb to be placed, then devote a few minutes to
examining these vulnerable points each time your car has been out of your
direct eye contact. Once you learn where to look, it will be very easy to
find anything that is unusual
The four points on your vehicle that are most vulnerable to a bomb
placement are: behind the tire, on top of the tire, under the car, and in
the trunk or engine compartment.
