Journal of Security and Sustainability Issues

The primary concern of this article is to review the knowledge and ability of people to act to protect themselves and others in the face of various risks and hazards, and to manage accident and crisis situations. Relevant issues include the needs and requirements of emergency situations, people’s ability to respond to them, and factors that affect coping ability. The selected sub-areas are practiceoriented and defined in terms of real-world problems rather than theories or scientific concepts. One of the purposes of choosing to structure the review of risk, accident and crisis management psychology in this way is to emphasize the importance of human limitations and capabilities as an element in all areas of activity and responsibility. This approach, in turn, assumes that the review contains a broad theoretical base and multifaceted approaches, which are necessarily treated here rather generically.

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.

For the last two decades, lone wolf terrorists in Western countries have been significantly changing their modus operandi. Part of these changes and possibly even one of their causes is the increasing use of the internet by lone wolves. This article reviews the role of the internet in the preparation of a terrorist attack as well as during the process of radicalisation of lone wolves. The possibilities and methodical flaws of lone wolf identification on the internet are also discussed. Based on current knowledge, it can be said that the Internet still has a limited role for lone wolves during the preparation of their terrorist attacks. However, it has been demonstrated, that as an efficient communication tool, the internet is of considerable importance in the process of lone wolf radicalisation. The internet is also a place where lone wolves may leak indications of their future actions. These leakages may be utilised for the identification of future lone wolf terrorists on discussion forums or radical websites using semi-automatic methods. However, the biggest drawbacks of these methods is their inability to distinguish between future lone wolf terrorists and common radical authors with no real intention on committing any terrorist act.