From the Terrorists point of view.

Kia Ora,

Being a hectic time, so a bit of a delay in the blogs. Three incidents or issues have come up & in trying to explain it to people in NZ I have had to go back to looking at it from a terrorists point of view.

First incident was the bomb alert at Dunedin airport. Of note was the description of the device & it begs the question as to why the whole airport was closed down after an initial check that there were no other devices.

From a terrorists point of view they would of got good information out of this. Drills used, how they can tie up major transport hubs in NZ due to poor standard operating procedures & that many cities in NZ, that will be used for the rugby world cup, have no explosive specialists.

As the British soon learnt in Northern Ireland, those on the ground need to be trained a little higher in IED recognition & even have drills to clear items themselves or you can tie a whole city up with just a few incidents.

That is a lesson that was put into NZ army training, but is lacking in NZ security training.

The next thing that arose was the annoucing of the Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens)Concerts.

Now I love his music & would like to go to one of the concerts, but I would consider them a likely target.

The reasons they are likely targets are as follows.

Yusuf is a moderate Muslim & those that carryout acts of terrorism consider them legitimate targets as they are not sticking to their view of the Koran.
I have being security for a TV Christian Evangelist who requires bodyguards & that was because for the same reason. A lesser evangelist had his family massacred by an extreme Christian group.

In the US at present there is a marked increase in open hostility towards the government, in particular over Obama being President & issues such as Healthcare.

In NZ here in an article within the last week it was stated that there was 7000 Saudi students. Most of them will be good law abiding people. There will be a few that will likely have other agendas on their mind.

What is generally not known is that despite all the focus on Iran & Syria allowing support to the insurgency in Iraq, most actually came across the border from Saudi Arabia & the majority of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi Students.

After the reporters stunt exposing the poor security & the comments in particular by the Minister of Police that security would be upped for the World Cup, but not before would signal to a terrorist that the best time is now & this concert is a perfect opportunity.

The third major issue is the press release by the Police inspector in charge of planning for the Rugby World Cup in which he states that they have planned for terrorist acts which though are unlikely.

From a terrorists point of view they will be laughing all the way to the bank. The World Cup as one of  the largest sporting event in the world supposedly, will be on the radar or as pointed out above in the events leading up to it. To say otherwise means you have your head in the sand.

He also points out he was at an international briefing for the Soccer World Cup.

Point he is missing as are many in NZ, is it is a huge jump in mindset from security or policing in NZ to the requirements of such an event, when terrorism is likely, when most people in NZ will never have experienced terrorism in the way most likely to hit on an ongoing basis.

Many live with the daily terrorism associated with organized crime or in Christchurch's case boyracers, but not what comes through with suicide bombings or associated activities.

Speaking to police officers on the ground, many agree & many do not want to be armed. Others tell me their weapon skills & lack of training means many are more dangerous to themselves or others around them

That is why the police associations campaign to arm police needs one of two things. A huge influx in money for training or the formation of groups of permanently armed police on standby for incidents requiring their skills.

Meanwhile NZ goes on believing that there is not threat. The biggest threat is the believe their is no threat.