Generolo Jono Žemaičio Lietuvos karo akademija

The aim of the research was to assess the possibility of using various types of civil aircraft for terrorist attacks. The main methods were: analysis and synthesis, analogy, generalization, comparison and inference. The research was based on the analysis of the literature as well as normative and doctrinal documents. Scientific observation where used, which focused on practical examples and attempts to use civil aircraft by terrorists to attack civilian objects from 2001 to 2020. Considering the large diversity of each types of aircraft, a criterion analysis was used to evaluate them in terms of their suitability for terrorist attacks. As a result of the conducted analytical research, three groups of aircraft were selected, which are particularly predisposed as potential tools of terrorist attacks on civilian objects. The first group consists of large-size structures such as passenger and transport planes, the use of which in attacks may cause the greatest losses, both material and human. The next group consists of small-sized light and very light airplanes, microlight, unmanned aerial vehicles and radio-controlled models. This type of aircraft and flying machines are in a period of dynamic development and, at the same time, of great interest on the part of terrorist groups. It was also found that in the case of attacks using explosives or taking into account aviation fuel (which, as a result of an aircraft collision with an object, usually explodes), greater possibilities give large aircraft, such as passenger and transport aircrafts.

The subject of this article concerns the safety of mass events and is dictated by their increasing popularity. Mass events are organized at various levels of the territorial division and have a very diverse range. Their safe organization and course are important from the point of view of the country’s internal security. The authors provide novel insights into risk management peculiarities of mass events in designed to prevent possible terrorist activities.

The aim of the article is to present Chechen terrorism as a consequence of violations of basic human rights, including the crimes of genocide committed by the Russian Federation in the First Russo-Chechen War in 1994-1996. It has been argued that terrorism has become a dramatic way of drawing the international community’s attention to the tragedy taking place in Chechnya. Over time, Chechen fighters were influenced by radical Muslim groups and used terrorist fighting methods. On the other hand, the Russians did not shy away from bombing entire villages they suspected of sheltering wanted fighters. All this led to an escalation of terrorism and radicalization of religious views among a large part of the society. Moreover, the lack of a decisive reaction from the West to the policy of exterminating the Chechen population by the Russian Federation has led to an increase in anti-Western sentiment, which had not been recorded in Chechnya before.

The elementary interest of every country is to maintain its inner security and stability. To achieve this goal the state must restrict within legal frameworks some fundamental rights of its own citizens. One of these fundamental rights is the right to privacy that can be breached only under certain circumstances. It is easy to see that it is unacceptable for a state not to control within the legal frameworks the communication of its own citizens so they can commit crimes, run terrorist rings, or spy rings or establish drug cartels without any consequences. Of course, the control over the communication is not the only means of the successful investigation but undeniably a vital one. That is why the Janus faced nature of the Dark Web is a real security risk nowadays. Although this new medium is the fruit of the last two decades its presence today is stronger than ever before and its popularity is growing day by day. Its most important features are anonymity, hidden geolocation and freedom from censorship. The Dark Web is very useful when it provides anonymity for political dissidents and whistleblowers, but is very harmful when it provides the same features for arm and drug traffickers and terrorists not to mention for pedophiles and so on. This article aims to shed some light on the effects of the Dark Web on the security and economy of the states especially in the aspects of organized crime and the terrorism.

9/11 made terrorism a part of everyday life on a global basis, attacking civilisation as a whole. As a result, the activity of terrorist organisations reduces people’s sense of security even in their everyday lives, by randomly attacking high public density targets with a huge emotional and publicity impact. The states cannot guarantee security through their law enforcement agencies alone, as the sources of danger have multiplied and become more unpredictable. Therefore, it is more important than ever to involve communities, social organisations, economic and market actors in maintaining common security. Private security thus plays by now an extremely important role in completing public order and security. The radicalisation trend within the terrorist organisations results in a growing number of internal terrorism threats. Given that terrorists aim to choose targets with a likely “success” of their acts, it is important to highlight those whose partial, temporary or total downtime entails consequences which would also make other infrastructures inoperative. Those who from these aspects turn to be the most important, and their continuous and well-functioning operation are essential to the operation of other infrastructures, are called critical infrastructures. If we put the above phenomena together, a clear conflict emerges: critical infrastructure protection, although in most cases not state owned, is also a common security issue, protected mostly by private security services, employing people mainly trained for private security tasks. Our article highlights this problem introducing the scientific background, also suggesting a possible solution for evaluation.

The issues of terrorism, protection against crime, anti-social behaviour, and sociopathological phenomena are current topics in today’s world. At present, there is no effective assessment in the Czech Republic of the physical security of buildings which could be the target of the threats. Within the security research of the Czech Republic, research was carried out whose main objective was to assess the existing level of physical security of public universities, with the subsequent determination of the minimum level of physical security of these buildings using new processes, practices, and technologies. In the Czech Republic, such research has not yet been realized. The main objective of the research was to thoroughly assess the current level of physical security of buildings at a representative sample of public universities, to create a security standard ensuring the minimum level of physical security of public universities against threats of terrorism, crime, anti-social behaviour, and also sociopathological phenomena. The contribution to the field of physical security in science is a rigorous assessment of the level of physical security measures of public universities, the analysis of criminal acts, security incidents, emergencies, risk designation, and the design of security measures. The benefit for practice is the creation of a security standard to ensure the minimum level of security of public buildings by physical security measures.

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.

This paper focuses on terrorist attacks carried out by so-called ‘lone wolves’ or ‘lone actors’. It provides an analytical evaluation of the basic characteristics of these attackers and discusses possible access to their identification in society. To create the profile of a ‘typical’ lone wolf, we collected information from a database of lone wolves who committed their terrorist attacks in the United States, Canada, the European Union, Switzerland, Norway and Australia from 1998 to 2016. Based on these data, it was demonstrated that lone wolves are not homogenous group, therefore, there is no one ‘typical’ lone wolf. Instead, three main groups of lone wolves were identified: 1) lone wolves with a criminal past, 2) lone wolves with a mental illness and 3) young lone wolves coming from minority groups in the country. These characteristics could be used as an auxiliary tool by state security forces during identification of potential lone wolf terrorists.

In this article the current trends of development of crime of the terrorist character and extremist orientation are investigated. On the basis of data of official statistics the state and structure of crime of terrorist character and extremist orientation are reflected. The tendency of steady growth of relative indicators of crimes of the terrorist character and extremist orientation is noted. Stimulation of activity of the terrorist and extremist organizations in the Russian Federation naturally inspired the further development of criminal and legal measures of counteraction of crime. Novelization of the criminal law has caused extension of the list of crimes of the terrorist character and extremist orientation. The restructuring of standards of the criminal law directed to the strengthening of measures of counteraction to encroachments of the terrorist character and extremist orientation is followed during the modern period mainly by criminalization and penalization of acts. The outlined tendency of growth of the criminal tension interfaced to development of the terrorist and extremist activity is reflected on the types and amount of the sentences imposed by the courts for the specified crimes. Special attention is paid to the measures of counteraction to the crimes of terrorist character and extremist orientation interfaced to an improvement of legal regulation of their prevention, stimulation of the state mechanism of counteraction of activity of the terrorist and extremist organizations, expansion of the international cooperation in the fight against terrorism and extremism.

In this article, the problem of terrorism is discussed in view of the peculiarities of legal nature. The phenomenon of terrorism is being analyzed by scientists in the political, economic, socio-psychological point of view and more attention is paid to the legal theoretical characteristics of this phenomenon. A more detailed analysis of terrorism in the article shows that use of concept of terrorism, regardless of reasons for this, makes the fight against terrorism an ideological tool, posed together as a growing threat to human rights. Furthermore, this article analyzes the reasons of terrorism and provides tendencies for further development of global terrorism. When there is no clear definition of terrorism and its causal relations are acceptable to all, questions concerning the scope of the fight against terrorism arise. In this case, we cannot be sure that modern democratic countries use the correct definition of terrorism in all cases and do not violate the human rights when fighting against terrorists. Even more doubts about the actions of democratic countries participating actively in fight against terrorism arise. The uncertainty of terrorism concept is being used to conceal violations of the human rights.