MARITIME COUNTER-TERRORISM SERVICES

The threat posed by terrorists and criminals to shipping and offshore installations is significant and well documented.  Maritime assets are easy targets for determined terrorists and the value of such installations, vessels and their cargoes make them attractive not only to regional terrorist and criminal groups but also to international organizations with aspirations of disrupting the economic lifelines of the industrialized world.

Every year billions of dollars are lost by companies world-wide due to terrorism and other forms of hostile interference. 
Terrorists can develop effective attack capabilities relatively quickly using explosives-laden suicide boats and light aircraft; merchant and cruise ships as kinetic weapons to ram another vessel, port facility, or offshore platform; commercial vessels as launch platforms for missile attacks and underwater suicide-swimmers as well as unmanned underwater explosive delivery vehicles to attack structures and vessels.

Terrorists can also take advantage of a vessel’s legitimate cargo, such as chemicals, petroleum, or liquefied natural gas, as using a vessel to transport powerful conventional explosives or WMD for detonation in a port or alongside an offshore facility.  Some of the major concerns to national security managers include, but are not limited to:

• Terrorists hijacking a huge oil or gas tanker and exploding it in mid-sea or in a major port in order to cause huge human, material and environmental damage. There are an average of 60 attacks on oil and gas tankers by pirates each year. This despite the stepped-up patrolling by the navies of different countries. What pirates with no ideological motive and with no suicidal fervour can do, ideologically-driven suicide terrorists can do with even greater, ease.
• Terrorists hijacking an oil or gas tanker or a bulk-carrier and exploding it or scuttling it in maritime choke points such as the Malacca Straits or Panama Canal in order to cause a major disruption of energy supplies and global trade. There are on average 50 attacks on bulk carriers by pirates each year. Again, if the pirates can do it, so can the terrorists.
• Terrorists smuggling an improvised weapon of mass effect such as radiological waste or lethal chemicals and biological agents in a container and detonating it as the vessel carrying the container reaches a major port.
• Terrorists attacking a nuclear establishment or an oil refinery or off-shore oil platforms.
• Terrorists hijacking a cruise liner or offshore installation and destroying it mid-sea to cause mass human casualties.

Clearly, maritime terrorism and its consequences present a significant risk to national infrastructure, businesses and individuals alike.  Due to its diversity of skills and contacts Kratos Enterprises Ltd is able to offer a flexible, wide-ranging package of training, consultancy services and products in order to protect companies and their staff from the host of maritime terrorist and criminal acts that threaten them.

Specifically, our expert consultants and trainers provide comprehensive and relevant practical advice and instruction, in IED threat surveys, bomb threat management, blast mitigation and crisis management.  These are balanced - where necessary - with lectures and written work resulting in a thoroughly concise yet comprehensive package.  Training and consultancy can take place in exclusive facilities within the UK or at the client’s chosen location worldwide.

Aviation Counter-Terrorism Services

Terrorist organisations are constantly looking for new ways to launch attacks. Today, the aviation sector employs 127 million people world-wide, and accounts annually for revenues of US $3.5 trillion, carrying 1.5 billion passengers and 28 million tons of cargo in 20,000 commercial aircraft.  Furthermore, with air travel becoming an increasingly popular mode of travel, terrorists are increasingly turning their attention to aviation terrorism, carrying out hijackings and mid-air bombings, suicide attacks and stand-off weapon attacks using RPGs and man portable air defence systems (MANPADs).

At a time when aircraft and airports face an imminent risk of being attacked it is essential to maintain effective aviation security at all facilities and to diligently undertake security processes to prevent aviation terrorism. 
If aircraft and passengers, as well as property and people on the ground, are to be protected, potential perpetrators of aviation terrorism have to be prevented from breaching security checkpoints and gaining access to secure airport areas and to aircraft.  In the unfortunate event that the terrorist succeeds, and is able to execute an attack on an aviation target, suitable security and blast mitigation systems must be in-place to minimise the effects.
Kratos’ consultants are able to conduct a risk assessment and deliver a detailed written report and verbal briefing outlining the recommendations on the optimum physical and procedural responses to mitigate the risks posed by IED attack against aviation assets.  The breakdown of services includes:

• Conducting a comprehensive IED threat assessment to include:

• Who or what is the threat
• The likely choice(s) of weapon
• What are the most likely scenarios or tactics for introducing an IED at or near the building or aircraft
• If an aviation asset is likely to be a target for a subsequent terrorist attack, then what the consequences of taking action are.

• Having identified the different potential threat scenarios, to then subsequently identify the optimum physical security and other mitigation approaches to:

• Minimize explosion impact (eg by use of barriers to increase stand-off distance and limit access of vehicles to potential target areas)
• Mitigate or minimize the impact of explosions by addressing vulnerabilities
• Manage the post-attack response

• Identifying state of the art physical security and
  blast mitigation systems including:

Image Courtesy of
Frazer-Nash Consultancy Ltd.

• Vehicle and individual access
  control systems
• Shaping Walls (designed to focus explosive forces and deflect energy)
• Reactive Walls (designed to react to explosives and counter-act explosive energies)
• Enhanced Survivability technologies that can enhance survivability and facilitate emergency response in the aftermath of an explosive event
• Multi-purpose Threat Mitigation strategies and technologies whose primary objective is blast mitigation, but can also provide significant protection from other, more frequent threats to populations and structures such as fire and natural disasters (including earthquakes)
• Suicide Bomber Early Warning technologies that allow the operator to identify—with a high level of confidence—a suspected bomber well in advance of the explosive device detonation. Particular emphasis will be placed on those technologies that provide standoff detection capability of an explosive device
• Suicide Bomb and Bomb Component Detection solutions intended to identify—with a high level of confidence—the existence of a bomb or its disassembled components while in transit.
• Suicide Bomb Device Deactivation technologies that can defeat a suicide bombing by deactivation of the explosive device. Particular emphasis will be placed on those technologies focused on deactivation the circuitry contained in the explosive device
• Structural reinforcement of existing building elements.

• Production and delivery of a detailed written report and verbal briefing outlining the recommendations on the optimum physical and procedural responses to mitigate the risks identified.
• Delivery of optimum physical and procedural responses – including a comprehensive IED awareness training package.

IED Threat Surveys

A Kratos Enterprises IED threat survey includes a comprehensive IED threat assessment incorporating asset penetration testing, a detailed risk analysis of all possible attack scenarios and preparation of a functional security programmed which includes where relevant:  physical counter-measures, detection, response and training.

Bomb Threat Management
Kratos Enterprises Ltd offers a comprehensive range of services concerning Bomb Threat Management.  These include responding to a bomb threat, production of bomb threat procedures, search and IED awareness training, bomb shelter procedures, staff response to a bomb threat, post incident bomb scene management; IED threat briefings to high risk personnel; IED construction and recognition; IED threat to corporate assets, the terrorist IED threat; devices and the damage they do; dealing with telephoned bomb threats; five plans for five possibilities; evacuation procedures; the role of police and emergency services in a IED incident; protection against flying glass and other debris; post incident recovery planning and useful POCs and publications.

Blast Mitigation

The extent and severity of damage and injuries in an explosive event cannot be
predicted with perfect certainty. Past events show that the unique specifics of the failure sequence for a structuresignificantly affect the level of damage.
Despite these uncertainties, it is possible to give some comparatively accurate indications of the overall level of damage and injuries to be expected in an explosive event, based on the size of the explosion, distance from the event, and assumptions about the construction of the building. 

In conjunction with our partner Frazer-Nash Consultancy Ltd, Kratos Enterprises Ltd is able to carry out accurate blast assessments using a variety of technical mechanisms including computer modelling and other scientific tools.

The results from these assessments are then used to develop mitigation systems capable of reducing or eliminating long-term risk to people and property from explosive devices and their effects.

 

Images in this section with kind permission of Kratos' partner
Frazer-Nash Consultancy Ltd
(see www.fnc.co.uk)

Crisis Management

When targets do fall victim to the effects of crisis, disaster or hostile interference, the most critical period can be the time taken to respond, take control and restore normality to the scene.  This is especially the case where incidents have increasing economic as well as national impact on the organisations involved.
An effective, well organised and prepared response can significantly mitigate the effects of the disaster and could save lives, protect the environment and minimise financial loss.

Kratos Enterprises Ltd, through its extensive experience in the field of crisis management is able to offer a flexible, wide-ranging package of training and services designed to protect companies and their staff from the host of threats posed against them including: crisis & disaster management planning; emergency services liaison planning; post disaster security; hot site (Temporary Operations Facilities) advice; development and audit of preparedness procedures; design and implementation of staff awareness and training exercises; media management exercises; table-top (operational) management exercises; case studies of real incidents and procedural reviews.