SAS Urban Survival Handbook (110 page)

Confidence in security procedures will encourage better morale and greater efficiency among staff. They should be introduced to anti-terrorist measures in a positive way—generating paranoia will be counterproductive.

Preventing intrusion

In the office or enclosed industrial site, a multi-layer system to prevent entry and detect would-be intruders, coupled with physical checks, will be effective, provided security guards are vigilant (see SECURITY).

Visitors and clients may find such measures off-putting, so it will help to warn them in advance and remind them that inspections are for their own safety.

Bombs do not need to be carried into a building, they can be fired—as a rocket or mortar bomb—or placed near the outside of the building. Seal letterboxes and fit grilles across vents, flues and other places where objects could be inserted. Seal accessible windows and instal shatterproof glass (or cover with metal grilles). Secure manhole covers and in a very high security situation use gates to bar access via sewers and other service channels.

Set up a perimeter barrier 10 metres (11 yards) or more (if possible) from the building. Do not allow unauthorized vehicles to park within this boundary. Never allow parking close to a high-risk building and erect physical barriers to prevent it. These may take the form of banked flower beds or terraces and need not be obvious barriers. All authorized cars should be locked and a guard posted to ensure they are not tampered with in any way.

Inside the building

The ingenuity of terrorists means that a bomb can be hidden ANYWHERE, but you can make it harder for them. Reduce the risks greatly by not providing:

• ◑ False ceilings
  
• ◑ Air-conditioning vents and pipes
  
• ◑ Oversized light fittings
  
• ◑ Accessible lavatory cisterns
  
• ◑ Any other locations with removable covers
  

Use furniture that provides minimum concealment—glass topped tables, no shelving, except in locked cupboards. Blinds or shutters are preferable to curtains. Plant pots and troughs provide further places to hide explosive devices. They may be ‘attractive’, but they are particularly hazardous in entrance lobbies and public access areas.

Enforce rules against untidy desks and work areas—don’t allow work to be piled up on them. It may be easy to slip a bomb under a pile of papers or in a document tray. An orderly and tidy working environment will make anything unusual or suspicious more noticeable to staff.

Similarly, scrap materials in industrial premises should not be allowed to accumulate and provide scope for concealment. Boxes, canisters and raw materials should not be stacked or stored in areas to which visitors have access. A device could easily be placed among them.

REMEMBER

When building from scratch, do not exclude terrorism when it comes to considering general security. Avoid architectural features, fittings and equipment that could be used as hiding places. Use sloping ledges inside and out, rather than flat surfaces (for example) and consult a security expert from the outset. Changes on the drawing board will cost much less than later alterations.

In some public buildings, such as department stores, it is virtually impossible to impose more thorough security checks on the public than a bag search on entry. It is VITAL, therefore, that staff and customers are vigilant and look out for suspicious packages or odd/questionable behaviour. Staff should also be well versed in procedures for reporting suspect devices, evacuation and further action.

WARNING!

NEVER THINK THAT YOUR SECURITY IS FOOLPROOF! Always be on the lookout for gaps in your defence and ways to improve your procedures. Constantly assess the terrorist scene and keep abreast of developments in anti-terrorist equipment.

Damage limitation

Good staff training and well-planned evacuation routes will counter the risk of panic and quickly clear the building. Apply protective film to windows to reduce the risks from flying glass. Fit anti-blast curtains made of tightly-woven polyester with a weighted hem. These will absorb the blast and glass fragments. Fire-fighting equipment should be readily accessible at all locations (see FIRE!).

Staff training

Every company and organization should already have fire drills, staff training—and regular practices! These procedures can be extended to cover the threat of terrorism. The police or terrorism experts can give advice on how to draw up antiterrorist plans to suit individual circumstances.

All staff must be aware of potential risks and the recommended measures that should be taken to combat them—though information that could be useful to terrorists should be disclosed on a ‘need to know’ basis only. No member of staff should EVER discuss security, the layout of a building or the use of individual areas, with ANY outsider.

Staff should also be made aware of the fact that ‘careless talk costs lives’. A conversation between two authorized members of staff in a public place may be overheard by terrorists—even seemingly inconsequential topics of conversation may be useful. If you do not have canteen or refreshment facilities, staff may regularly meet in cafés, restaurants and public houses. When they are together, discussing ‘work’ may be unavoidable. The news of the impending visit of an important person, for instance, may spread like wildfire.

If the company is not large enough to have its own security officers, a member of staff must be given this responsibility and become the contact with police and other organizations. At least one, preferably two, members of staff should be appointed as bomb-threat officers. They MUST be trained in the recognition of explosive devices. Neither they, nor any other member of staff, must ever take charge of bomb disposal—that is a job for the experts.

All staff members must know any coded warnings (see
Hold-ups and robberies
) and be familiar with the company’s evacuation procedures. Each must know their exact responsibilities. In an evacuation, some may be responsible for seeing visitors or customers off the premises whilst others may supervise staff muster points.

WARNING

The safest way to deal with a bomb or a suspect device is to get as far away from it as possible—as quickly as possible. Unless you have VERY good reason to believe that a bomb is a hoax, evacuate the area.

REMEMBER

Lines of communication must be established for any emergency situation and some means of contacting all staff quickly devised. Public-address systems or internal telephones may be available, but some reserve system should be considered, perhaps loud-hailers.

WARNING

Walkie-talkies are not suitable for contact in bomb emergencies—electronic detonators are sometimes designed to be activated by radio frequencies. Unless an expert has seen the bomb, you cannot be sure if it is to be detonated by a trigger, by a timer or by remote control.

Staff emergency codes

In shops, hotels, airports, conference and entertainment centres, or anywhere where the public gather in large numbers, it is VITAL to have a means of alerting responsible staff to a terrorist situation quickly WITHOUT causing panic. The best way of communicating is by a public-address system and using a series of codes, devised to cover all possible emergencies. These should be known and understood by members of staff as part of their regular training.

If the emergency can be contained and the public are not at risk, then the rest of the staff should know what to do, without causing general panic. If action is needed, staff can implement emergency drills and be ready to give assistance unhindered.

Emergency codes will vary according to the circumstances, but they could follow the style ‘Mr Black report to reception’, for example. To the untrained ear this is a normal enough message, but to staff the name ‘Mr Black’ would mean a bomb threat and ‘report to reception’, carry out emergency evacuation procedure.

Alarms

All alarm systems should be regularly tested. They need to be sounded during working hours, unannounced, to test evacuation procedures. People in high-risk buildings may be nervous enough without being subjected to alarms, which could mean anything. Establish an alarm language. Three short blasts, pause, three short blasts could mean that the alarm is for testing evacuation procedure only. A continuous alarm could indicate a real fire emergency. A continuous stream of short blasts could indicate that there is a bomb in the building.

Evacuation

There may be no way to tell initially whether a bomb warning is a hoax or not, but you CAN’T take chances—the only course of action is to evacuate. In workplaces, or at school, everyone on the premises should know the evacuation drill. This will be much the same as a fire drill (see FIRE!:
Equipment & drills
).

Where members of the public are present (places such as shops, theatres or sports stadia), it is up to the staff to organize evacuation—calmly and quickly. Providing a building has adequate emergency exists, the public should not be at risk.

Planning an evacuation procedure depends on a building’s layout and use. In most countries there are laws governing the number and location of exits, often depending on how many people use the building. If you are responsible for safety in a public building you may be liable to prosecution if regulations are not followed. Equally, if you are just an employee, and you suspect that safety rules are not being maintained, you MUST report this to the relevant authorities—people’s lives may depend on it!

If you are evacuating the public from a building in the event of a bomb threat, there are special instructions which you must give to people. Some contradict instructions you may be used to in fire drills.

• ◑ DON’T leave belongings behind, especially bags. This reduces the number of possible suspect packages that bomb disposal experts have to deal with.
  
• ◑ In a theatre or similar venue with tilting seats, make sure that your seat is lifted so that a search is made easier.
  
• ◑ Once clear of the danger area, report any suspicious object and its location to police or security officer.
  
• ◑ Once out of danger, DON’T leave the scene—if a bomb has been planted the police will need to eliminate from suspicion as many people as possible. If you were in the vicinity, be prepared to give your name and address so that you can be interviewed later.
  

Bomb search

If a bomb warning has been given and evacuation has taken place, the only people who should re-enter the evacuated area are the police, security officers and the bomb squad. However, the best people to search each area are the people who work in it. Without their knowledge, a search is likely to be time wasting and possibly ineffective. For this reason it is VITAL that once a bomb alert has been given, staff have a quick-search procedure which they can put into action as they evacuate.