Next wave of suicide bombers.

• Author: Bunker, Robert J.
• Position: READERS'FORUM - Letter to the editor

Your September 2010 article, "Terrorist Loophole: Explosives Under Clothing at Airport Checkpoints," was dead on concerning the current nightmare of suicide bombers utilizing close-to-the-body (under and inside clothing) explosive devices to attack high-value targets such as commercial airliners and, by extension, VIPs and critical facilities. A multi-decade cat-and-mouse game between terrorists and security professionals has taken place which has resulted in increasing levels of sophistication in both hiding the bomb and reducing its signature and in detecting the bomb and/or looking for anomalies in the behavior of a terrorist attempting to penetrate the security protecting a highvalue target.

The article could have gone even further in its discussion and analysis of the iterated process taking place between bombers and security professionals by addressing the ever-evolving context in which explosives under clothing exists.

Having coordinated for a number of years a suicide bomber web base and having written the initial International Association of Chiefs of Police training keys on suicide bombers, ray concern has grown with regard to high-value target suicide bombings.

Eventually, the only rational option for terrorists would be to utilize an internal body-cavity bomb. Accordingly, drawing upon the rich body of literature and data concerning body cavity contraband, by mid-to-late 2006 briefings on suicide bomber body-cavity bomb potentials were being provided to law...