Monday, August 08, 2005

If it smells wrong...

WSJ (subscriber-only) has a piece today on how a major mall security firm, IPC, is handling security against potential suicide bombers looking for a soft target. This little nugget is worthwhile:

Enter Arik Arad, who served as Israel's head of shopping-center security, a government post, from 1993 to 2003...His message to mall owners: Forget about the hand-held metal detectors, the machine guns and the explosives-sniffing dogs. Instead, he said, adopt Israel's "software" approach to shopping-mall security by learning the terrorist modus operandi. "It's not about guns, it's about training," Mr. Arad says.
...
"We began to move away from the idea of what does a suicide bomber look like to how does he act," says Mr. Lusher. The beauty of the method, he adds, is that you are profiling behavior instead of people.
...
Among the things IPC learned from its studies of the Israeli approach was to teach employees to use all their senses when looking out for bombers, not just their sight. Often suicide bombers will anoint themselves with perfume, fragrant soap or rosewater in preparation for what they believe will be their martyrdom -- which leaves a flowery tell-tale scent.

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