Enabling Surveillance Detection for Dignitary Protection Details

The article below was written by Multi Tier Solutions and was first published in the magazine "The Counter Terrorist" in April 2008.

This article is copyrighted and may NOT be copied from this site.

The concept

It’s Thursday evening, your Principal is visiting a library he had just donated to. Without warning, an AK47 wielding terrorist enters and methodically begins to shoot at everyone he sees.

There is no escape as the terrorist is obstructing the way to the only exit. As you maneuver your Principal to cover, you instinctively search for a clear line of fire. Whilst scanning the room, you witness the students that were sitting next to and across from you just moments before getting shot. The new student that was across from you talking to your Principal, barely 18, is severely wounded but as another student tries to get closer to help him, the terrorist calmly moves toward him and shoots him in the head.

A scene from a blockbuster Hollywood movie? Unfortunately not, seemingly benign venues can quickly turn into battlefields and as our enemies become more sophisticated, we need to use all tools and skills at our disposal to keep our clients and facilities safe.

On March 6, 2008, a lone terrorist entered the Yeshivat HaRav Seminary in Jerusalem. He killed 8 students before being killed himself. It was 20:00 and the seminary was packed with students. There was no security in place at the seminary. The terrorist knew that the venue would be packed; he knew that it would be populated mostly with teenagers and he knew that he could enter without any hindrance from security. He also knew exactly where the majority of students would be - in the library where he systematically shot them and then returned to kill the wounded. From when he entered until he was killed took 4 minutes. His key to success was that he had performed intense information gathering on the facility prior to the attack.

The attack was not random, it was meticulously planned.

Investigations into both terrorist attacks including bombings and assassinations and criminal activity have shown that prior to the vast majority of attacks, varying levels of intelligence gathering is performed by the hostile group on the target in order to ensure the operation’s success.

This article aims to illustrate the value and importance of establishing Surveillance Detection capabilities in order to greatly improve risk mitigation for Dignitary Protection Details.

From a very young age, we are all taught how to recognize who is watching us; from strangers at the park, neighbors always interested in our comings and goings, and of course when walking into a nightclub or bar.

As a result of this early training we automatically notice the very first stage of inter personal communication, correlation to what we are doing or reaction to what we are saying.

Surveillance Detection is the honing and development of these natural abilities much like a star athlete; we can all run, but require dedicated training and development to reach our full potential.

Surveillance Detection skills are similar for both facility and dignitary protection, however naturally dignitary protection involves mobile methods in addition to static methods.

Examples
Specific case studies can assist us in understanding the value and practical implementation of surveillance detection:

On November 30, 1989, Mr. Alfred Herrhauzen, Chairman of The Deutche Bank was assassinated by an improvised explosive device disguised as a school bag on the rear carrier of a bicycle.

As Herrhauzen’s armored Mercedes and motorcade passed the bicycle, the device was armed by remote control and detonated by the target vehicle transporting Herrhauzen. The detonation was activated by the target vehicle breaking a light beam and resulted in a steel disc penetrating through Herrhauzen vehicle door. The damage caused by the explosive device severely damaged Herrhauzen's legs and he bled to death within minutes.

Worth noting is the precision required to have executed this so successfully. The terrorists knew when and how Herrhauzen would be travelling, they knew which security detail would be with him on the day (he had one government detail, one private detail) they knew where he would be sitting and the precise time he would pass. They had planned this attack for months, and had a team of terrorists posing as street maintenance workers for weeks preceding the attack. They worked on the road travelled by Herrhauzen and a Surveillance Detection team or a Surveillance Detection enabled protection detail would have identified them during the planning and intelligence gathering stage and been able to thwart the attack.

On October 17, 2001, Israeli Minister of Tourism, Mr. Rechavam Ze’evi was murdered outside his hotel room in Jerusalem by two Palestinian terrorists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. It had been published in the Israeli press that Mr. Ze’evi had refused the Israel Security Agency dignitary protection agents and this was indeed one of the major reasons he was selected as a viable target. Once the PFLP had decided on Mr. Ze’evi as a possible target, they began to monitor his movements, routine, and confirm if the press had reported his security procedures accurately. The terrorists then reported their findings to their cell commander and a plan of action was developed based upon this information. On the day of the assassination, the two assassins watched Mr Ze’evi's hotel room and when he exited they approached him and shot him twice from close range, causing in his death. Even though they had information that Mr. Ze’evi would not have security, there were two assassins, one for Mr. Ze’evi, and one to neutralize the security guard, had there been one.

On the November 4, 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Mr. Yitzchak Rabin was assassinated by a lone gunman in Tel Aviv, Israel.

The assassin, Yigal Amir, had been planning this assassination since January 1995. He had watched Mr. Rabin’s security procedures and had been present at public events attended by Mr. Rabin on at least three separate occasions. During this intelligence gathering, Amir had even tested Rabin’s security when attempting to break through a security barrier near Mr. Rabin. There were failures at the event where Mr. Rabin was shot, but in addition to this, failures have been identified in the way Amir’s previous actions went unrecognized at previous events and that the assassination could have been avoided had the hostile surveillance of Yigal Amir been correctly identified and processed months before the attack.

The three aforementioned examples illustrate where effective surveillance detection was not implemented, and had it been, the chances that these attacks would not have happened are greatly enhanced. By understanding the importance of the repeated hostile sightings in areas correlating with targets movements, security details could have exercised a number of options to disrupt this hostile intelligence gathering.

Summary
Identifying activity that correlates to a principals movements may be innocent, but when a pattern is recognized by trained personnel, it quickly becomes an indication that the principal is either a target or potential target for a hostile act. Surveillance Detection is not only the recognition of this potentially suspicious activity in the field, but the recording, analysis and dissemination of suspicious activity to team members to enable this intelligence, which can greatly assist to mitigate risks and hinder a hostile act before it happens.

As indicated in the case studies above, the lack of awareness and Surveillance Detection skills enabled successful attacks, and in other less publicized and classified cases these skills have halted hostile acts whilst still in the planning stage.

Surveillance Detection as a concept has been operating within certain government agencies for several years; however the value is only recently being understood in private and corporate sectors.

Recent trends have shown that to overcome budgetary as well as internal political obstacles in the private and corporate sectors, a new concept has emerged: The Surveillance Detection Enabled Professional.

As opposed to the traditional dedicated SD agent, this concept merges the skills of existing facility and personal security details and enables them with skills required to recognize hostile activity in the planning stage and thus become a proactive factor as well as the pre-existing reactive factor. This combinations of skills greatly reduces the risk to facility and personnel, thus assisting to ensure continuity whether in business or on a personal level.

Whilst traditional SD teams operate covertly, SD Enabled Protective Details operate overtly for the most part, performing their standard day to day protective activities. They are however, enabled with SD skills that strengthen the overall protection system and have the ability to see the "hidden dimension" of correlating activity that is all too often missed. As circumstance and risk dictate, these SD enabled agents can also operate as a dedicated covert SD team.

To learn more about becoming a SD Enabled Protection Specialist please read about our courses here or contact us here.