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Friday, April 17th 2015
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This Issue
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Course Information
Date: 17th Apr 2015 (Fri)
Time: 9am to 5pm
Venue: Concorde Hotel Function Room (f.k.a Le Meridien Hotel) Orchard Road
Fee : S$500 (NETT)
* Inclusive of teabreaks and lunch
To register, please contact Jaslyn
@ 9767 9686 / 6278 9785 or
jaslyn@cbsgroup.com.sg
Registration is on a 1st come 1st serve basis. Register early to avoid disappointment.
Click here for registration form |
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1 Day Workshop in Current Threats - The Specter of Urban Terrorism
(Origin, Innovation, Assessments and Preventive Measures) |
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| General Background |
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Practice of terrorism, for a long time, has headed towards the cities. Giving up the safety of the rural areas and those of the forested stretches, terrorists have focused on the urban centers. The reason is not difficult to see. The cities are the locations of a nation's political, intellectual as well as financial prowess.
Much before the 9/11 attacks, terrorists found it convenient to exploit the vulnerabilities of the cities (also called 'built up areas' in strategic language). Even though cities are more secure in comparison to the rural areas, they present enormous opportunities in terms of protecting the anonymity of the attackers, ease to assemble explosives using commonly available ammonium based ingredients and convenience of financial and electronic transactions. In terms of target selection, urban areas provide a wide variety of choices to the attackers. In terms of impact, attacks on cities hit media headlines fast, even when not causing significant fatalities. It injects an element of fear among the residents and affects the economy.
Urban terrorism has grown enormously in terms of number and impact in the last decade and it is in order to predict that in future, terrorism would confine itself only to the urban areas. This will make the lives of the urban dwellers much less secure and the governments vulnerable. |
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Cities can be targeted by terrorist outfits as well as self-radicalized lone wolf terrorists. The recent attack in Norway demonstrates the lethality of a lone terrorist, without any affiliation with an organized terror outfit. This creates further challenges for the security establishment who are predominantly focused on countering the activities of terrorist outfits. The practice of counter-terrorism has to match the innovations in terrorist approaches.
An urban terror attack can range from a copy book explosion targeting any location of consequence to gunmen carrying out killing sprees in populated places. It can combine methods like hostage taking to murderous assaults by a lone or many terrorists. It can come as a car bomb or any other form of an improvised explosive device (IED) to the use of a chemical or biological weapon. It can be carried out by invisible enemies or can also be carried out by gunmen on a suicide mission.
The threat is even more pronounced in the wake of the weakening of the Al Qaeda, after the death of Osama bin Laden. Intelligence inputs tell us that the Al Qaeda will try to reestablish itself by trying to organize attacks that may not be as big as the 9/11 attacks, but having an equally devastating impact on the socio-political and economic fabric of nation states. In Southeast Asia, Al Qaeda affiliates like the Jemaah Islamiyah and the Abu Sayyaf may have weakened, but still retain enough potency to carry forward the violent legacy of the outfit. And Norway tells us that it may not have to be a terrorist outfit to send shivers down the spine of a country. It simply can be just one radicalized individual.
Therefore, it makes sense to be aware, prepare and be on the alert to deal with terrorist attacks of the new variety. Such efforts will have to be based on analyses of the past incidents, the ability of the terrorist outfits/ organizations and a knowledge of the experiences of other countries- successful or not so successful.
Training is a key ingredient to the enhanced capacity to deal with the emerging urban terrorism threat. |
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| Course Outline |
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The Urban Terrorism seminar is of top importance for several reasons. The modules that would be covered in the seminar are as follows:
1. Urban Terrorism: The origin and its importance for Terrorist Outfits
2. Learning from the experiences: Case studies from different parts of the world
3. Power of a lone terrorist (examples and lethality of lone unattached terrorists, with focus on the Norway terrorist attacks)
4. Challenge of Urban terrorism threats to Southeast Asia & Singapore
5. Preventing Urban Terrorism: Measures adopted by countries to deal with Urban Terrorism
6. New Challenges: Imagining the Impossible? Framing responses to future attacks. |
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| Who should attend the workshop? |
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The purpose of the seminar is to analyse past urban terror attacks and learn from the experience of different countries focusing on the short comings and the strengths demonstrated in dealing with the exigencies. The seminar's diversified topics are ideally suitable for policy makers in governmental institutions, law enforcement bodies, security officers in hotels, hospitals, educational institutions, public-transportation systems, etc.
The State Sector:
Officials in charge of counter-terrorism, Policemen, security guards in state-run facilities (governmental offices, public transportation security supervisors, courts, schools, state functionaries' body guards, etc.).
The Private Sector:
Security companies' personnel, security officers, representatives of security related academies, hotel-security managers, hospitals, shopping centers, VIP body guards, etc. Even the media personnel covering terrorism and security related news would find the seminar especially useful. |
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| Testimonials |
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Dr Prasad is well-versed in this field. A good course for knowledge & exposure!"
Senior Police Officer, Singapore Police Force (SPF)
"I enjoyed the presentations by course mates and group discussion. It was an in depth learning!"
Senior Employment Inspector, Ministry of Manpower (MOM) |
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| About the Instructor |
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| Dr. Bibhu Prasad Routray |
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| Dr. Bibhu Prasad Routray served as a Deputy Director in India's National Security Council Secretariat. He is a counter-terrorism analyst by profession and has a decade long experience in living in conflict prone areas and carrying out research on terrorist movements in South Asia. As a terrorism specialist he has conducted several training modules for security forces, government officials, diplomatic staff, media personnel and academicians. He writes on the web and several newspapers (print as well as electronic). Some of Dr. Routray's writings especially one on the Norway attacks was published in The Straits Times recently. Between November 2010 and March 2011, Dr. Routray was associated with the RSIS where he did a project on India's Counter-Terrorism Architecture after the Mumbai attacks. Currently, he is affiliated with the think tank of the Indian Army as a Visiting Fellow and finishing a book project on the Maoist Movement in India. |
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