World Security Report April 2014

VIP Protection – The cavity bomber, what’s the answer?
by Tony Kingham, Editor,
WorldSecurityReport
It was confirmed last year that
the attempted assassination
of Afghanistan’s intelligence
chief, Asadullah Khalid, back in
December 2012 was perpetrated
using a bomb carried concealed
inside the suicide bombers body
cavity.
Following a previous assignation
of an Afghan peace envoy by
a terrorist with a
bomb hidden in
his turban, this
individual was
asked to strip
in an armoured
room and
observed over
CCTV. The bomb
was obviously not
picked up using this method,
so the unnamed assailant was
allowed to see Mr Khalid, where
the bomb was detonated.
Mr Khalid was not killed but
suffered serious enough injuries to
require ongoing treatment in the
US.
Back in August 2009 the
attempted assassination
Prince Mohammed bin
Nayef, the Saudi Interior
Minister, was the first time
that this method of attack
was first reported. On this
occasion, with the element
of surprise on their side, the
terrorist was able to pass through
two airport security screenings and
the Prince’s own security before
detonating a device that used
a mobile phone card and a half
kilo of explosives that had been
inserted in his rectum.
Fortunately the Prince was unhurt
but the perpetrator, a Saudi citizen
named Abdullah Hassan Tali al-
Asiri, was blown in two.
This is not a threat that will go
away. It will have
been noted
by terrorist
organisations
around the
world that twice,
VIP security
screening has
been penetrated
and twice they have
successfully detonated a device.
With no shortage of young men
and women willing to die for their
cause and
“conceivably they could conceal up
to 2 and a half kilo’s of explosive and
detonator inside the body”
the small
amounts of
explosive
needed for
these high
profile attacks, they will no-doubt
be asking themselves, how they
can increase the lethality of the
device?
Now, there is probably a limit to
the size of a device that can be
carried in the rectum, limiting the
explosive power, but there are
some well known and well used
ways of increasing the amount that
can be carried in the body.
Every week at airports around the
world, drugs smugglers (mules)
are caught carrying kilo’s of
swallowed illegal drugs inside their
stomach. They have been known
to carry over two kilo’s in up to 150
capsules (usually condoms). Now
clearly, for every mule that gets
caught, many more succeed.
In prisons, a wide variety of objects
are routinely smuggled into prison
hidden inside a prisoners or
visitors rectum. Typically this will
be high value prison contraband
such as mobile phones, drugs,
cigarettes etc. but according
to msnbc.com report last year,
a working 10 inch .38 calibre
revolver was smuggled into a jail
cell by a criminal suspect. The
suspect had been strip searched
and performed what officers
called a “squat and cough”
procedure but the weapon was
not discovered. It seems he was
only discovered when officers
were alerted by other inmates.
This maybe an extreme case and
6 - World Security Report worldsecurity-index.com