iacsp magazine dimona

Vol.14, No.2Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International

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A member of the Israeli

police bomb squad surveys the scene of a

suicide bombing in the southern town of Dimona February 4, 2008.

A Palestinian carried out the first suicide bombing in Israel in a year on Monday, killing a

woman in a desert town where a top-secret nuclear reactor is located. REUTERS/Amir Cohen (ISRAEL)

Vol.14, No.2Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security InternationalVol.14, No.2Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International

The management of a terror incident differs according to the location, the character of the event, the number and severity of casualties, the rate and ease of evacuation, experience and skills of the command and emergency teams operating in the arena, and the number and level of the nearby hospitals and their capacities. Researching the unique characteristic of the management and outcomes of every one of these events has taught us different new lessons and it was suggested that proper manage-ment of the event can be a key factor in reduction of the mortality rate in a mass casualty incident (Bloch, et al., 2007). Therefore, we believe that les-sons learned from every event must be prospectively described and analyzed using the same methodology to allow generalization from the accumulated experience and to draw conclusions from them.

Incident Background

On February 4th, 2008, at approximately 1030 hours, (Israel local time 0830 GMT), two suicide bombers arrived at the open mar-ket in the City of Dimona. The terror group that planned and executed the attack was the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, a terrorist squad from Hebron—the military wing of the Hamas organization (Jerusalem Post Online, 2008). The first bomber detonated himself on a crowd of innocent bystanders at the open market while inadvertently injuring the second bomber that arrived with him. As a result of the attack, a female was killed and 48 civilians were injured.

IntroductionThe frequency of mass casualty incidents (MCI) due to terrorist attacks has increased in recent weeks in Israel and worldwide. These events can occur in central or peripheral towns, and in urban or rural areas. Numerous events, mainly involving conventional bombs detonated in heavily populated areas, have occurred throughout the world as indicated in the London bombing (Almogy, 2004), and in Israel in the vicinity of surrounding trauma centers (Bloch, Y., Schwartz, D., Bar-Dayan, Y., et al., 2007).

The last successful suicide bombing attack in Israel was in the southern City of Eilat on January 29, 2007. The attack was carried out by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in collaboration with a Fatah terror cell. The suicide bomber originated from the Gaza Strip and detonated himself at bakery, killing three Israelis (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2007). Prior to the Eilat bombing, the last Hamas (Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya) suicide attack was on August 12, 2005. This attack also took place in the southern part of Israel in the City of Beersheba. The target for this attack was the central bus transportation node where 40 civilians were injured and responsibility claimed by the PIJ (BBC News, 2005).

and based on policies and training by emergency medical service (EMS) responders, and subse-quently, lethal force was utilized to neutralize the threat by law enforcement. The effective work by law enforcement in neutralizing the imminent and life threatening presence of the second suicide bomber prevented a much more extensive attack and minimized casualties. Incident Control and Management

After more than a year without a suicide attack in Israel and in a place that had never experi-enced an attack, security forces generally have become complacent to the immediate threat of suicide bombers and shooting attacks occurring in Jewish towns throughout Israel. Supporting this is the fact, only a week before the attack, the special transportation security unit created to prevent bus bombings a few years earlier, was disbanded. It also should be noted that during the production of this article, on March 6, 2008 a terrorist infiltrated the library at the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva seminary in Jerusalem killing eight students and wounding 11 others with an automatic rifle (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2008).

Because of the timing and place of the attack, and days after Hamas destroyed the wall sepa-rating the Gaza Strip from the Northern Sinai Peninsula, it was widely speculated the bombers came from Gaza by way of Sinai and through

the unfenced area only a few dozen kilo-meters south of Gaza. Final reports disprove this concept after the bombing was claimed by the Al Aksa Martyr Brigades—the militant wing of the Fatah in Hebron. The bombers most likely infiltrated to Israel from the 26 km wide gap in the southern section of the Security Barrier, approxi-mately 30 km north of Dimona. The desert moon-like landscape demands that local Bedouins residents, most knowledgeable about the region paths of movement, helped in some way with or without knowledge of the bombers intent. It is a known fact that hundreds of illegal Palestinian workers infiltrate this area weekly with the help of local Bedouins (Barzilai, 2008).

What is known is that the two suicide bomb-ers arrived to the same location. The intent was for the first suicide bomber to direct the detonation towards civilians at the commu-nity center. Once this attack was executed, the second suicide bomber would target the first responders inbound to the scene as well as operating within the seat of the explosion.

Immediately upon knowledge of the attack, emergency medical services responded to the

scene. Their mission is the immediate evacuation of the injured from the potentially dangerous scene, while law enforcement secure the scene as bomb technicians render any suspicious devices safe.

Behavior, Target,and Attack Operation

Local Pizza Café owner “Ravital” reported after the attack she believes that one of the bombers ordered coffee at her establishment only minutes

The planned adversarial operation was designed and intended to be a double suicide attack with the first bomber detonating himself in an open market, and the second bomber targeting first responders operating within the scene. Prior to detonation, the second bomber was identified

After more than a year without a suicide attack in Israel and in a place that had never experienced an attack, security forces generally have become complacent to the immediate threat of suicide bombers and shooting attacks occurring in Jewish towns throughout Israel. Supporting this is the fact, only a week before the attack, the special transportation security unit created to prevent bus bombings a few years earlier, was disbanded.


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Lessons Learnedand Outcomes

Perhaps the single most important lesson learned is the continued need to conduct and review interagency field exercises to improve agency response an interdiction to an incident. The Dimona incident was a classic presentation of the “secondary device” against first responders and would have proven deadly if not for proper training and effective decision making skills. Moreover, many organizations have policies and procedures in place specific to blast inci-dents, but as in the case of Dimona, responders were well into casualty evacuations before the secondary device was discovered. This devel-oping crisis prompted law enforcement to make fast operational and tactical decisions in order to minimize responder and civilian casualty. Learning from Dimona, it is clear training and exercise objectives should include an evaluation of emergency communications between agen-cies for evacuation of personnel from scenes determined to be unsafe.

References

Almogy, G., Belzberg, H., Mintz, Y., Pikarsky, A.K., Zamir, G., Rivkind, A.I. (2004). Suicide bombing attacks: update and modifications to the protocol. Ann Surg., 239(3), 295-303.Barzilai, A. (2008, March). The Bedouin intifada: it’s not if, but when. Retrieved March 9, 2008, from http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=431607&contrassID=2&subContrassID=20&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

Bloch, Y., Schwartz, D., Bar-Dayan, Y., et al. (2007). Distribution of casualties in MCI with three local hospitals in the periphery of a densely populated area: lessons learned from the medical management of a terrorist attack. Prehospital and Disaster Medicine, 22, 176-182.Bomb hits Israeli bus station. (2005). BBC News. Retrieved August 28, 2005, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4192208.stmSuicide bombing in Eilat bakery. (2007). Israel of Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Retrieved March 9, 2008, from: http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Palestinian+terror+since+2000/Suicide+bombing+in+Eilat+bakery+29-Jan-2007.htmTerror shooting at Mercaz Harav Kook Yeshiva in Jerusalem. (2008, March). Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Retrieved March 8, 2008, from http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Palestinian+terror+since+2000/Terror+shooting+at+Mercaz+Harav+Yeshiva+in+Jerusalem+6-Mar-2008.htm

Woman killed, 38 wounded in Dimona suicide bombing. (2008, February). Jerusalem Post Online. Retrieved February 4, 2008, from http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1202064575658

before the attack. Her statement as reported was that a “nervous Arab man in a red coat came in and demanded ‘coffee, quick!’” Although not confirmed, this action is considered rare in cases of Palestinian suicide bombings and if confirmed true, shows a level of cool headedness and self confidence that is unprecedented. Most reports of civilian interactions with suicide bombers in the minutes before acting were short, evasive and somber. Terrorists justifiably believe they are being watched and are seconds away from a special forces “take-down” before leaving their residences. Although their has been reports of calm and collected behavior prior to an attack, (for example the 9/11 terrorists; but these were a group of hand picked special well trained “cream of the crop” terrorists who made a mission out of the operation) the natural psychological behavior of someone who is about to detonate himself, can be noticed. If covered up by some type of drug use (which is common), the bomber will likely act sedated, again raising suspicions through prior law enforcement training.

The fact Dimona has not been hit by acts of terror is both expected and a surprise. As a target, it is small and far away from Palestinian cities, and has a larger city (Beer Sheba) between it and the Southern Palestinian Territory of the Hebron Hills. On the other hand, the (supposed) exis-tence of a nuclear reactor and weapons facility near the city makes it a high profile target rather than a target-rich environment. Nearly every news report outside of Israel added at the end of the report the nuclear facility in the vicinity portrays Dimona as a high profile target city.

Incident Commandand Scene Mitigation

Response was immediately initiated by (EMS) and incident command was established. Again, for Dimona, it is the first time residents have ever experienced a terror attack, and therefore operating and response procedures could have potentially been slower to coordinate a smooth and safe process. The response was fast by all agencies. EMS was supported by local medical clinics that dispatched “Good Samaritans” to the scene to assist emergency crews. The Good Samaritan team comprised of a physician and nurse. The pair immediately began to treat the seriously injured, which included the would-be bomber. While treating the injured suicide bomber, the crew identified an imminent threat, evacuated the scene and notified law enforce-ment. As the team evacuated the scene, and relayed the details of the threat to law enforce-ment on location, they were able to continue to meet their mission objectives and successfully dragged an additional wounded woman with them to safety.

In Israel, the patrol commander tends to be one of the first commanders on location at an at-tack. The patrol commander or the equivalent in similar police units receives the initial report

from the first on scene officer and relieves the first arriving officer of incident command du-ties. Once a ranking officer is on location, the officer ultimately has the overall responsibility to maintain command until an officer of higher rank transfers the authority. The first command on the scene, upon arrival will rendezvous with the emergency personnel on site, receive an up-date from the personnel on location, and in turn, maintain command and control of the incident while relaying the details of the incident to the upper level command.

With the first suicide bomber killed in the primary attack, the second suicide bomber was critically injured and had been identified by

emergency personnel. As per law enforcement personnel on location, the second suicide bomber posed a clear and imminent threat to the rescuers and civilians on location. The intended plan of action of this bomber can only be speculated that he intended to target the first responders entering the seat of the explosion. This is considered a known criteria and a successful tactic perpetrated by adversarial elements of such globally. The bomb technician as well as the superintendent had used lethal force against the second bomber; however, the threat had not been fully neutralized. The danger associated with such an attacker, is the po-tential for the injured bomber to use what strength is left of him to initiate any switch to detonate the explosive device.

Until the threat can be rendered safe, no addi-tional rescue attempts can continue. Identifying the danger to the civilians, rescuers, himself, and operating off of training and policy, a superinten-dent from the Israeli Police fired several shots, fatally wounding the second suicide bomber before he could detonate his explosive device. As soon as the threat was neutralized, and bomb technicians rendered the explosive device safe, emergency crews were able to re-enter the scene and continue with their overall mission.

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iacsp magazine dimona

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