Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
school. As with any skill, learned techniques must be practiced on a reg-
ular basis for them to work. Another good habit to begin right now is to
never roll up too close to the vehicle directly in front of you. Make sure
when you stop you can see the rear tires of the car ahead of you. Make
this a constant practice, and you will always maintain enough room
between you and the car in front of you to allow you to react in case of
attack.
Our recommendation is to try to attend schools that have instructors
with prior experience as law enforcement or intelligence officers for the
Secret Service, DSS, or CIA. There are also several emergency driving
schools whose non-agent instructors have taught for well-respected acad-
emies such as the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) or
the Secret Service Academy in Beltsville, Maryland. By getting training
yourself or having your drivers trained, you can significantly improve your
chances of surviving even a well-planned and coordinated attack. You will
learn to evade and escape. Furthermore, you'll learn how cars can be used
as weapons. Your car is a several-thousand-pound object moving at high
speed. Simply crashing into the blocking car, perhaps repeatedly, can dis-
able and possibly kill the attackers. Needless to say, running over an
armed terrorist will put him out of business permanently. One point to
remember if you are driving in an armored vehicle is that the protective
armor adds a great deal of weight to the car or SUV. While the suspen-
sion systems of such vehicles are enhanced to accommodate the added
weight, the handling characteristics will be dramatically different from a
regular vehicle. If you are planning to take a driving course, you will need
to use your own armored vehicle or find a school that has such vehicles
in its fleet.
The attackers in the UTP case were members of the Mutehida Qaumi
Movement (MQM), a radical Islamic group. The timing of the attack, just
one day after a Pakistani national named Aimal Kansi was sentenced to
death in Fairfax, Virginia, for the murder of two Central Intelligence
Agency employees at CIA headquarters in 1993, led investigators to link
the two events and term the killings in Karachi a terrorist act of reprisal.
Subsequently, two Pakistani nationals were arrested, tried, and convicted
of the crime in Pakistan. Other MQM members who were involved have
not yet been arrested and remain at large. In November 2002, Kansi was
executed for his crimes by the state of Virginia. More such attacks in retal-
iation are expected by the U.S. Department of State. If you are truly con-
cerned about being attacked in this manner, you will need to armor your
