Bomb Jammers

According to a secret memorandum intercepted by French intelligence, Al-Qaeda planned to commit attacks with bombs introduced into the body of suicide bombers. This raises questions in regard to the techniques for screening passengers.

An Islamist arrives at the palace of a Saudi Prince, who is head of counter-terrorism in Saudi Arabia as well as the son of Interior Minister of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It is the time for the breaking of the fast of Ramadan. The Islamist comes to visit and implore the clemency of the prince, so he claims. The master of the house hardly has a chance to approach him when suddenly the Islamist whips out a mobile phone and explodes. Miraculously, The Prince comes out with only a few scratches. His Islamist visitor, on the other hand, is scattered around the room in seventy pieces. He had blown himself up with his bomb prematurely.

The outcome of the investigation of this event will determine if the secret memorandum intercepted by French intelligence is a real threat. It is suspected that the bomber did not use an explosive attached to his belt as is the conventional technique. According to initial analysis, he carried his bomb within his body. “An explosive amount ingested, or rather introduced as a suppository which is almost undetectable. The terrorist was able to get past palace security as he only carried a mobile phone on his person. The palace security has been warned that this is the new “modus operandi” of al-Qaida, who officially claimed responsibility for this attack.

This will have immense effect as it challenges all the security protocols in place to protect against terror attacks, starting with aircraft and airport security.

Airport security is equipped with metal detectors, but in the case of Saudi suicide bomber, only an X-ray inspection would have detected the explosives. It would be extremely difficult to x-ray every single airline passenger and any device that could handle the volume of passengers would be extremely expensive. Additionally it would pose a health risk to passengers, especially those who fly frequently.

The solution raised by one forensics expert would be to use a radio jammer device. It would be more practical to take measures against the transmitter used to make the device explode rather than x-raying every single person going through a security checkpoint.  In this case the terrorist used a mobile phone to detonate himself, implanting bomb jammers may be a possible solution. Although this would block people from receiving phone calls altogether which would cause another problem. Had palace security had RCIED jammers this attack may have been averted, this attempt has prompted the debate about using RF jamming devices to prevent future instances.