[381] AIRPORTS’ LANDSIDE AND INTERIORS: TRAVELERS AT RISK: ANALYSIS BY STRATFOR; THREAT LENS; March 02 2017 15:32:47 GMT

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AIRPORTS’ LANDSIDE AND INTERIORS: TRAVELERS AT RISK

Non-Terrorist Threats To The Air Traveler

[March, 02, 2017]

Ø High Net Worth Individuals [HNWI] may have solid security on either end of their commute, but executive protection teams must mitigate dangers on vulnerable spots in between.

Ø The landside risk to air travelers extends well beyond the [airport] terminal.

Source: STRATFOR; THREAT LENS; ANALYSIS; March 02 2017 15:32:47 GMT

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[1] Analysis Highlights

1. We routinely report on the continued terrorist interest in, and threat to, airports. And indeed, the soft - or, landsides - of airports are an opportune target for militants due to their combined importance to international air travel and relatively open access.
2. Attacks like those against Zaventem in March 2016 and Istanbul Ataturk Airport in June 2016 demonstrated terrorists’ ability to kill large numbers of people, grab international headlines and disrupt international travel to and from the targeted airports for extended periods.
3. But airports are not only attractive targets for transnational jihadist threats like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. They are scenes of nefarious activity of all shapes and sizes, all over the world, including everything from targeted political assassinations to smuggling, from high-stakes criminal heists to protest movements seeking to increase their profile on the landside and the airside.
4. Beyond being strategic national assets, major international hubs are hives of activity that create chokepoints for a city -- and sometimes even for a nation or region -- that relatively wealthy air travelers must pass through.
5. Baghdad has one airport; Kuala Lumpur serves as a major international air hub for Malaysia; and London’s Heathrow airport turns over 76 million passengers annually through terminal space that adds up to little more than a quarter square mile.

[2] Targeted Hits

6. While jihadist attacks against airports in Brussels and Istanbul maximized casualty rates by detonating explosive devices and/or shooting passengers on the landside, other attackers have more specific targets.
7. For example, the killers who on Feb. 13 smeared VX on Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, targeted him as he waited to check into his Kuala Lumpur-Macau flight. Kim Jong Nam reportedly maintained residences in both areas, so we assume he flew between the two cities regularly, making him an easy target for pre-operational surveillance.
8. Similarly, the January 2017 assassination by one headshot of Ko Ni, a political legal adviser to the Myanmar ruling party, occurred at Yangon International Airport. Ko Ni was returning from a trip to Indonesia. Anyone with access to his approximate schedule would have had a good idea of when he would be passing through Yangon’s airport on his way home.
9. In another incident, a group of up to 30 people physically assaulted Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and other members of his group at the airport in Anapa, Russia, in May 2016 as he arrived for vacation. Navalny described the incident as a pre-planned, organized attack.
10. In a case similar to that of Navalny, CCTV footage captured a mob of protesters chasing down and assaulting Sri Lankan Ambassador to Malaysia Ibrahim Sahib Ansar on the landside of Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Sept. 4, 2016. Though other recent protests had targeted Ansar, his security at the airport still appears to have been inadequate.
11. The landside risk to air travelers extends well beyond the terminal. In another diplomatic incident, in September 2016 Iraqi officials claimed that they had disrupted a plot to attack the motorcade of the Saudi ambassador to Iraq on his way to the airport during one of his regular trips back to Saudi Arabia. Hard targets such as ambassadors, who are heavily protected at their place of work and residence, become much more vulnerable when passing through chokepoints like Baghdad International Airport.

[3] Financial Crimes

12. Examples abound of targeted attacks exploiting airports as chokepoints for financially motivated crimes. One of the most brazen came in 2013, when criminals were able to access a plane on the secured, airside of the terminal while it was parked at the gate in Brussels. In the span of about 5 minutes, thieves imitating police officers swooped in and stole $50 million worth of diamonds a Brinks security team had just delivered to the plane and escaped through a hole cut in the perimeter fence. That the thieves had identified the heavily restricted airport tarmac as the best spot to intercept the diamonds shows airport security is not foolproof.
13. Thankfully, jihadists have not shown nearly that level of skill in attacking hard targets in recent years as thieves have. If the team behind the diamond heist had had terrorist instead of financial motives, the attack could have been far more devastating than the jihadist attack against the same airport three years later.
14. The airport-city route is another opportune location for financially motivated criminal attacks. Paris’ Le Bourget executive airporthas been a favorite haunt for high value heists. Over the past three years, four smash-and-grab attacks against high net worth individuals have occurred during the commute from Paris to Le Bourget, netting upwards of $6 million in jewelry and other possessions -- and those are just the incidents that were reported. Like the Saudi ambassador in Baghdad, high net worth individuals [HNWI] may have solid security on either end of their commute, but executive protection teams must mitigate dangers on vulnerable spots in between.

[4] Opportunistic Criminal Activity

15. Overall, airport terminals are notorious spots for opportunistic criminal activity. The combination of distracted, jetlagged and sometimes intoxicated passengers arriving in new, unfamiliar places makes the landside of airports ideal grounds for petty crime. Just as advertisers and merchants know that international air travelers are a relatively well off, so do criminals.
16. Pick-pockets, black taxis and a multitude of other scammers and hustlers base themselves at airports because some of the wealthiest clientele to visit any particular city are funneled through them.
17. The results can be deadly: In March 2016, an Egyptian was killed after he refused to turn over his luggage at Simon Bolivar International Airport’s arrivals terminal in Caracas. At a higher level, corrupt airport officials in Venezuela also appear to be shaking down travelers, according to a ThreatLens source in July 2016.

[5] Getting Attention

18. Airports’ strategic importance to the international movement of goods and people means that interrupting those services is sure to attract attention. Most forms of protest at airports are directly against airport or airline policies; airline employees in Europe routinely disrupt air traffic with labor strikes. Similarly, opponents of Heathrow’s runway expansion used disruption tactics for years to gain attention for their position.
19. Like jihadists and financially motivated criminals, many other protest movements have targeted roads to airports. The Black Lives Matter movement has regularly targeted highway approaches to airports in major U.S. cities (and an airport runway in London) as a force multiplier. In some cases, several hundred protesters have managed to garner national or even international attention by disrupting traffic to and from airports.
20. Similarly, opposition protesters in the Democratic Republic of Congo demonstrated their anger against meddling with the national election schedule by blocking the road to the international airport, an especially worrying development for foreigners considering evacuating during the political unrest there at end of 2016.
21. And in 2008, major protests targeted Suvarnabhumi airport in Bangkok, grounding air traffic a day after the protesters shut down parliament.

[6] Governments Get in on the Action

22. While airports can prove a particularly sensitive vulnerability for countries that rely on air traffic for outside access, they also offer state authorities the same advantages criminals, political agitators and assassins seek there. Recent examples in Russia and Thailand show how border controls at airport ports of entry can serve the government’s political motives.
23. In July 2016, airport authorities at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport pulled the chairman of Universal Filmed Entertainment Group, Jeff Shell, out of the immigration line and eventually forced him to leave the country. In Thailand, authorities detained Hong Kong pro-democracy advocate Joshua Wong at the behest of Chinese officials as he arrived in Bangkok in October 2016.
24. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps routinely intercept Westerners of Iranian descent on their way out of the country at Tehran’s international airport. (Tehran currently holds over a dozen Western political prisoners on unsubstantiated espionage charges.)
25. Airports provide officials a highly controlled choke point where they can filter incoming passengers and detain outgoing passengers they deem valuable for diplomatic leverage or politically undesirable.
26. In a more violent example of law enforcement confrontations at airports, gunfire erupted when Mexican police attempted to detain Zeferino Morales Franco at Mexico City International Airport in 2012. Three federal police officers were killed in the process. Morales Franco had long used the airport as a smuggling hub, another strategic criminal activity common at major airports.

[7] Cyber Threats

27. Cyber threats are rapidly spreading to target airports, too. Criminals have evolved from picking pockets to intercepting signals by setting up hostile WiFi connections.
28. Airports are bountiful hunting grounds for criminal elements and state-sponsored surveillance; the risk of the latter is particularly acute in countries with known hostile intelligence services.
29. Like hotels, malls and any other public WiFi spots, travelers should therefore exercise caution when going online at airports.
30. And just as governments can take advantage of the chokepoint airports create to detain citizens, officials are increasingly searching -- and in some cases seizing -- electronic devices at airports. This means the risk of having their sensitive information and devices compromised is very real for travelers.

[8] Mitigating Risks at Airports

31. Mitigating the general array of risks at airports is similar to mitigating the terrorist threat: Minimize time on the landside of the airport, and have a plan (and contingency plans) for getting to and from the airport.
32. International travel can be hectic, and processes at airports vary from country to country and city to city.
33. Being prepared before you arrive and giving yourself plenty of time will minimize distractions and allow you to focus on your immediate surroundings. And once past the security layer, keep your guard up.
34. Airport security, especially in the West, is geared toward preventing major attacks, not necessarily stopping petty theft or cyber crimes. For those who have a high public profile or who are travelling with valuables, planning is even more necessary.
35. Do not make yourself more visible than necessary, which might mean blending in with a sedan rather than travelling in a flashier vehicle likely to attract criminals.
36. Use discretion when purchasing and moving high value items, such as art and jewelry, and consider using trusted agents to deliver valuables rather than moving them yourself.
37. Anticipating threats in advance and watching for them in real time ultimately helps travelers lower their risk of being targeted.

AVIATION SECURITY THREATS AND REALITIES [Nov. 23, 2010]

Source: STRATFOR; Security Weekly; By Scott Stewart; November 23, 2010 | 18:24 GMT

https://www.stratfor.com/weekly/aviation-security-threats-and-realities

[1] [AVIATION SECURITY]

1.       Over the past few weeks, aviation security — specifically, enhanced passenger-screening procedures — has become a big issue in the media. The discussion of the topic has become even more fervent as we enter Thanksgiving weekend, which is historically one of the busiest travel periods of the year. As this discussion has progressed, we have been asked repeatedly by readers and members of the press for our opinion on the matter.

2.       We have answered such requests from readers, and we have done a number of media interviews, but we've resisted writing a fresh analysis on aviation security because, as an organization, our objective is to lead the media rather than follow the media regarding a particular topic. We want our readers to be aware of things before they become pressing public issues, and when it comes to aviation-security threats and the issues involved with passenger screening, we believe we have accomplished this. Many of the things now being discussed in the media are things we've written about for years.

3.       When we were discussing this topic internally and debating whether to write about it, we decided that since we have added so many new readers over the past few years, it might be of interest to our expanding readership to put together an analysis that reviews the material we've published and that helps to place the current discussion into the proper context. We hope our longtime readers will excuse the repetition.

4.       We believe that this review will help establish that there is a legitimate threat to aviation, that there are significant challenges in trying to secure aircraft from every conceivable threat, and that the response of aviation security authorities to threats has often been slow and reactive rather than thoughtful and proactive.

[2] THREATS

5.       Commercial aviation has been threatened by terrorism for decades now. From the first hijackings and bombings in the late 1960s to last month's attempt against the UPS and FedEx cargo aircraft, the threat has remained constant. As we have discussed for many years, jihadists have long had a fixation with attacking aircraft. When security measures were put in place to protect against Bojinka-style attacks in the 1990s — attacks that involved modular explosive devices smuggled onto planes and left aboard — the jihadists adapted and conducted 9/11-style attacks.

6.       When security measures were put in place to counter 9/11-style attacks, the jihadists quickly responded by going to onboard suicide attacks with explosive devices concealed in shoes. When that tactic was discovered and shoes began to be screened, they switched to devices containing camouflaged liquid explosives. When that plot failed and security measures were altered to restrict the quantity of liquids that people could take aboard aircraft, we saw the jihadists alter the paradigm once more and attempt the underwear-bomb attack last Christmas.

7.       In a special edition of Inspire magazine released last weekend, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) noted that, due to the increased passenger screening implemented after the Christmas Day 2009 attempt, the group's operational planners decided to employ explosive devices sent via air cargo (we have written specifically about the vulnerability of air cargo to terrorist attacks).

8.       Finally, it is also important to understand that the threat does not emanate just from jihadists like al Qaeda and its regional franchises. Over the past several decades, aircraft have been attacked by a number of different actors, including North Korean intelligence officers, Sikh, Palestinian and Hezbollah militants and mentally disturbed individuals like the Unabomber, among others.

[3] REALITIES

9.       While understanding that the threat is very real, it is also critical to recognize that there is no such thing as absolute, foolproof security. This applies to ground-based facilities as well as aircraft. If security procedures and checks have not been able to keep contraband out of high-security prisons, it is unreasonable to expect them to be able to keep unauthorized items off aircraft, where (thankfully) security checks of crew and passengers are far less invasive than they are for prisoners. As long as people, luggage and cargo are allowed aboard aircraft, and as long as people on the ground crew and the flight crew have access to aircraft, aircraft will remain vulnerable to a number of internal and external threats.

10.   This reality is accented by the sheer number of passengers that must be screened and number of aircraft that must be secured. According to figures supplied by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), in 2006, the last year for which numbers are available, the agency screened 708,400,522 passengers on domestic flights and international flights coming into the United States. This averages out to over 1.9 million passengers per day.

11.   Another reality is that, as mentioned above, jihadists and other people who seek to attack aircraft have proven to be quite resourceful and adaptive. They carefully study security measures, identify vulnerabilities and then seek to exploit them. Indeed, last September, when we analyzed the innovative designs of the explosive devices employed by AQAP, we called attention to the threat they posed to aviation more than three months before the Christmas 2009 bombing attempt.

12.   As we look at the issue again, it is not hard to see, as we pointed out then, how their innovative efforts to camouflage explosives in everyday items and hide them inside suicide operatives' bodies will continue and how these efforts will be intended to exploit vulnerabilities in current screening systems.

13.   As we wrote in September 2009, getting a completed explosive device or its components by security and onto an aircraft is a significant challenge, but it is possible for a resourceful bombmaker to devise ways to overcome that challenge. The latest issue of Inspire magazine demonstrated how AQAP has done some very detailed research to identify screening vulnerabilities. As the group noted in the magazine: "The British government said that if a toner weighs more than 500 grams it won't be allowed on board a plane. Who is the genius who came up with this suggestion? Do you think that we have nothing to send but printers?"

14.   AQAP also noted in the magazine that it is working to identify innocuous substances like toner ink that, when X-rayed, will appear similar to explosive compounds like PETN, since such innocuous substances will be ignored by screeners. With many countries now banning cargo from Yemen, it will be harder to send those other items in cargo from Sanaa, but the group has shown itself to be flexible, with the underwear-bomb operative beginning his trip to Detroit out of Nigeria rather than Yemen. In the special edition of Inspire, AQAP also specifically threatened to work with allies to launch future attacks from other locations.

15.   Drug couriers have been transporting narcotics hidden inside their bodies aboard aircraft for decades, and prisoners frequently hide drugs, weapons and even cell phones inside body cavities. It is therefore only a matter of time before this same tactic is used to smuggle plastic explosives or even an entire non-metallic explosive device onto an aircraft — something that would allow an attacker to bypass metal detectors and backscatter X-ray inspection and pass through external pat-downs.

[4] LOOK FOR THE BOMBER, NOT JUST THE BOMB

16.   This ability to camouflage explosives in a variety of different ways, or hide them inside the bodies of suicide operatives, means that the most significant weakness of any suicide-attack plan is the operative assigned to conduct the attack. Even in a plot to attack 10 or 12 aircraft, a group would need to manufacture only about 12 pounds of high explosives — about what is required for a single, small suicide device and far less than is required for a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device. Because of this, the operatives are more of a limiting factor than the explosives themselves; it is far more difficult to find and train 10 or 12 suicide bombers than it is to produce 10 or 12 devices.

17.   A successful attack requires operatives who are not only dedicated enough to initiate a suicide device without getting cold feet; they must also possess the nerve to calmly proceed through airport security checkpoints without alerting officers that they are up to something sinister.

18.   This set of tradecraft skills is referred to as demeanor, and while remaining calm under pressure and behaving normally may sound simple in theory, practicing good demeanor under the extreme pressure of a suicide operation is very difficult.

19.   Demeanor has proved to be the Achilles' heel of several terror plots, and it is not something that militant groups have spent a great deal of time teaching their operatives. Because of this, it is frequently easier to spot demeanor mistakes than it is to find well-hidden explosives. Such demeanor mistakes can also be accentuated, or even induced, by contact with security personnel in the form of interviews, or even by unexpected changes in security protocols that alter the security environment a potential attacker is anticipating and has planned for.

20.   There has been much discussion of profiling, but the difficulty of creating a reliable and accurate physical profile of a jihadist, and the adaptability and ingenuity of the jihadist planners, means that any attempt at profiling based only on race, ethnicity or religion is doomed to fail. In fact, profiling can prove counterproductive to good security by blinding people to real threats. They will dismiss potential malefactors who do not fit the specific profile they have been provided.

21.   In an environment where the potential threat is hard to identify, it is doubly important to profile individuals based on their behavior rather than their ethnicity or nationality — what we refer to as focusing on the "how" instead of the "who." Instead of relying on physical profiles, which allow attack planners to select operatives who do not match the profiles being selected for more intensive screening, security personnel should be encouraged to exercise their intelligence, intuition and common sense.

22.   A Caucasian U.S. citizen who shows up at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi or Dhaka claiming to have lost his passport may be far more dangerous than some random Pakistani or Yemeni citizen, even though the American does not appear to fit the profile for requiring extra security checks.

23.   However, when we begin to consider traits such as intelligence, intuition and common sense, one of the other realities that must be faced with aviation security is that, quite simply, it is not an area where the airlines or governments have allocated the funding required to hire the best personnel.

24.   Airport screeners make far less than FBI special agents or CIA case officers and receive just a fraction of the training. Before 9/11, most airports in the United States relied on contract security guards to conduct screening duties. After 9/11, many of these same officers went from working for companies like Wackenhut to being TSA employees. There was no real effort made to increase the quality of screening personnel by offering much higher salaries to recruit a higher caliber of candidate.

25.   There is frequent mention of the need to make U.S. airport security more like that employed in Israel. Aside from the constitutional and cultural factors that would prevent American airport screeners from ever treating Muslim travelers the way they are treated by El Al, another huge difference is simply the amount of money spent on salaries and training for screeners and other security personnel. El Al is also aided by the fact that it has a very small fleet of aircraft that fly only a small number of passengers to a handful of destinations.

26.   Additionally, airport screening duty is simply not glamorous work. Officers are required to work long shifts conducting monotonous checks and are in near constant contact with a traveling public that can at times become quite surly when screeners follow policies established by bureaucrats at much higher pay grades.

27.   Granted, there are TSA officers who abuse their authority and do not exhibit good interpersonal skills, but anyone who travels regularly has also witnessed fellow travelers acting like idiots.

28.   While it is impossible to keep all contraband off aircraft, efforts to improve technical methods and procedures to locate weapons and IED components must continue. However, these efforts must not only be reacting to past attacks and attempts but should also be looking forward to thwart future attacks that involve a shift in the terrorist paradigm.

29.   At the same time, the often-overlooked human elements of airport security, including situational awareness, observation and intuition, need to be emphasized now more than ever. It is those soft skills that hold the real key to looking for the bomber and not just the bomb.