Response to Soft Target TERRORISM: Recommendations for Mega Event Security

Abstract

Homegrown terrorism and lone wolf terrorism are important terms for the rapidly changing pattern of terrorist attacks since 9/11. Considering that terrorism is intended to terrorize others and spread fear and destruction, entities that terrorist groups can do as much damage as they can are selected as a target of terrorism. A recent research suggested that terrorist attacks against soft targets including business entities and private and non-governmental facilities have increased while terrorist attacks against hard targets including military and governmental facilities have decreased in general. The activities of terrorist groups have shown new trends since 9/11. First, it is changing from group-oriented activities to the distributed network by using the Internet and advanced communication technologies. They are recruiting members through the Internet and social media, teaching them how to conduct terrorist attacks, and even raising money for terrorism. Secondly, terrorist targets are changing into soft targets such as skyscrapers and public facilities since 9/11. 7/7 terrorist attacks in London, 2005 and Mumbai attacks in 2008 are typical examples of this trend. Facilities referring to soft targets are crowded with many unspecified people, which makes it important to prevent and counter terrorism at the national level because it can cause a lot of casualties and danger in case of terrorist attacks. This article introduced the discussion about soft target terrorism and examined characteristics and vulnerabilities of facilities related to mega sports event. It also tried to suggest countermeasures based on these vulnerabilities. This article is meaningful as an exploratory study introducing the terrorist target of soft target which is rarely introduced in Korea. Studies on the possibility of terrorism in Korea have mainly discussed the possibility of terrorist attacks by North Korea or international terrorism. Since South Korea is ahead of the PyeongChang Olympic Games in 2018 and has been on the list of countries for possible terrorist attacks by the IS, both hard and soft target should be considered together to prevent terrorist attacks. For these reasons, it is meaningful to introduce the discussion about soft target terrorism which can cause massive damage as Korea is ahead of the sports mega event, Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games in 2018.