Terrorist Attacks on Selected Soft Targets

Abstract

Soft targets are places that are typical of a large concentration of population and a low level of security. Compared to so-called hard targets, these places are not permanently protected. Soft targets are shopping centers, clubs, restaurants, schools, transport, airport terminals, gatherings, entertainment centres etc. Soft targets are increasingly being chosen as a target for terrorists. It is caused mainly by its characteristics. This paper focuses on the safety situation of soft targets due to current threats of terrorist attacks, it specifically addresses the issue of safety in the entertainment industry. Based on the available terrorist attacks database, terrorist attacks, attacks on soft targets and entertainment during the years 1970 -2017 were evaluated. There is an increase specifically in attacks on soft targets and attacks on entertainment in the years 2005 -2015 and the most in 2011 -2015. Based on the analysis of available data, basic safety measures have been designed to increase the resilience of soft targets -entertainment centres that are used for other objects and events with a large number of citizens. The aim of this article is to establish basic criteria to identify soft targets and to assign a level of importance to the criteria based on a questionnaire survey carried out among professionals.

Risk Reduction Strategies against Terrorist Acts in Urban Built Environments: Towards Sustainable and Human-Centred Challenges

“…The more frequent environments where terrorists perform attacks seem to be urban BEs, especially if highly populated [2,[8][9][10]. According to consolidated approaches [11][12][13], targets are defined in terms of: (1) quantity, such as the number and typologies of BE users, tourist presence, the economic values of a BE and hosted activities; (2) quality, by preferring strategic buildings and symbolic targets, such as cultural, religious and institutional places and their occupants.…”

“…According to consolidated approaches [11][12][13], targets are defined in terms of: (1) quantity, such as the number and typologies of BE users, tourist presence, the economic values of a BE and hosted activities; (2) quality, by preferring strategic buildings and symbolic targets, such as cultural, religious and institutional places and their occupants. Large cities seem to be more potentially affected by terrorist acts, since here the effects can be maximized [8,10,14]. The BE for terrorist act targets should be considered as the system of indoor (the building) and outdoor areas (the open spaces in the BE) because of their complexity in case of an attack [8].…”

“…International classifications of terrorist targets, by including the ones of the European Commission definitions, recognize "hard" and "soft" targets in relation to the protection strategies and risk management that are applied to them [10,13,18,19]. Government buildings, military institutions and additional strategic buildings are "hard targets", characterized by codified and significant control levels (including restricted access to the public) and protection (including armed guards) measures [18,20].…”

Full Face Masks Construction and Main Modernization Trends

“…It has to be objectively acknowledged that design trends are mainly determined by military masks, from which the individual components are progressively applied to civilian masks [1,2]. In order to determine the basic modernization trends of the current time, it is necessary to recall the main design characteristics of the 4 th generation masks [3][4][5][6][7][8]. Nowadays, brand new masks should maximally use new technological approaches and must be ready to react on new security threads and be suitable for fulfilment tasks in all kinds of military operations [9][10][11][12][13][14].…”

Risk analysis of the soft targets according to the methodology

“… school facilities,  theatres and cinemas,  churches and church monuments,  school facilities,  canteens, libraries,  hotels,  bars, clubs,  sport halls,  religious monuments,  train and bus stations,  shopping malls [2,3,4,5].…”