Terrorism: you can’t stop it, whatever the rhetoric about a ‘war on terror’. But you can reduce its impact through training, mitigation and hard work.
I was on the Bosphorus Bridge when I heard about a bomb exploding in Ankara
Chapter 2 of my book Lessons in Diplomacy: Politics, Power and Parties is called How to tackle terrorism. Diplomats have to prepare for and live with a constant threat of terrorist attack. The following is an extract from the book looking at counter-terrorism training.
Training, training and training
Three key elements of blunting the impact of actual terror attacks are training, training and training. As ‘head of ops’ in the Security Co‑Ordination Department from 1989–91, one of my tasks was to accompany experts from Scotland Yard, the Home Office, the agencies and other organisations involved in counter-terrorism (CT) on their regular visits to provincial police forces such as Edinburgh, Durham and Cleveland. We ran exercises to test how such forces would handle a large-scale terrorist incident.
Exercises were split between the ‘players’ – those being tested, who participated in a scenario not knowing how it would turn out – and the directing staff, or DiStaff, who ran the exercise from behind the scenes trying to make things as realistic, and difficult, as possible. In this case, the main players were the local police force, whose training was the object of the exercise, plus volunteers representing the Home Office, FCO, hostages and so on.
A military element[1], to be used to release hostages by force if all else failed, was invariably part of the exercise – in order to test them, too, in action under maximum pressure.
Austrian counter-terrorism unit going through the windows during an exercise in 1987. I was inside with British Home Secretary Douglas Hurd
During exercises, I felt particularly sorry for the people playing hostages. They were often trapped in cramped accommodation, such as an aircraft or a basement, for hours or days while negotiators tested out tactics such as not emptying the toilets to put pressure on the ‘terrorists’ to make concessions. If and when a rescue was attempted, armed police or military units treated hostages – and manhandled them – as potential terrorists until they had proved their innocence[2].
DiStaff running such exercises had immense experience, while the local police faced the stress and chaos of a scenario designed to force them to take tough decisions on the basis of inadequate information. Organisers took a sadistic pleasure in delivering to the players unexpected twists, such as the following imaginary diplomatic telegram from the British ambassador in Riyadh during an exercise in Cleveland:
EXERCISE EXERCISE EXERCISE
THE KING REQUESTED A PERSONAL AUDIENCE WITH ME AT 1145Z. HE EMPHASISED HIS CONCERN FOR THE SAUDI HOSTAGES, AND ASKED WHETHER IT WAS TRUE THAT SEVERAL DEAD HOSTAGES HAD NOT YET BEEN IDENTIFIED. SAUDI SUN FRONT PAGE THIS MORNING READS QUOTE TYNE-TEES TERROR AS CORPSES CARPET CLEVELAND UNQUOTE.
CAMEL-HUMPINGTON
New players would appear at the most inopportune moment – a top US politician wanting to assume control, angry relatives of hostages, or – a favourite – pushy journalists who would ask to borrow laptops or other equipment and walk off with them.
Training transforms people’s ability to respond to pressure. Just as, at the Moscow State Linguistic University in 1992, instructors drilled us for hours on how to open a conversation on the telephone, and teachers at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts made diplomats practise public speaking in front of live video cameras, so CT exercises worked to mould the muscle memory of police officers the length and breadth of the UK.
Should you ever get a chance to take part in a CT exercise, step forward. My training as head of ops was invaluable when I later handled crisis work in the British Overseas Territories (mostly hurricanes), Ukraine (Russian invasion), and Turkey and Austria (terrorist attacks).
But never volunteer to be a hostage.
[1] The 22nd Special Air Service Regiment, known as the SAS, came to prominence in 1980 when they freed prisoners taken hostage by terrorists at the Iranian embassy in London.
[2] At the end of the Iranian embassy siege, two terrorists tried to conceal themselves among the liberated hostages.
Terrorism: the pictures
The profile picture on this post shows the aftermath of the 20 November 2003 bombing of Pera House, the British Consulate General in Istanbul, killing twelve people inside – including Consul General Roger Short – and many more outside. The first picture in the text shows the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul, where in March 2016 news reached me of a bombing in Ankara. Both events are described in Lessons in Diplomacy. The final picture is a counter terrorism exercise in Austria in 1987, during a visit by Home Secretary Douglas Hurd.
What to do next
I hope you enjoyed the above excerpt from Lessons in Diplomacy. If you’d like to know more about the book, you may like to explore my description of it here. Or if you’d like to order a copy from Amazon, here’s a link.
