Hostage Rescue Research Articles

Using the five-factor model of personality to identify an optimal SWAT team member

This study, based on the five-factor model (FFM) of personality, aimed to identify personality traits associated with the most optimal special weapons and tactics (SWAT) team member. SWAT teams are tasked with pre-empting and responding to terrorist threats, conducting hostage rescue operations, and managing situations that exceed the capabilities of conventional law enforcement agencies. The study sought to provide a deeper understanding of how personality traits function within the high-stakes context of these teams. It involved 159 male SWAT officers in active service within the Swedish Police Authority. A work analysis instrument, the Personality Job Profiler (PJP), was administered to these officers, who served as subject matter experts (SMEs) in a comprehensive personality work analysis. Specifically, the study addressed two research questions: How can an optimal SWAT police officer personality profile be operationalized when translated to the FFM of personality? What is the association between this optimal SWAT profile and the ratings of ten Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders personality disorder profiles, based on the FFM of personality? The findings suggest that successful SWAT officers should exhibit low neuroticism and high conscientiousness, specifically featuring low vulnerability and high levels of competence, dutifulness, and self-discipline. Notably, the SWAT profile differs significantly from personality disorders, such as borderline, schizotypal, dependent, and avoidant, when operationalized with the FFM of personality. These results have significant implications for developing predictors for the selection process and can enhance the selection procedures for future SWAT members. This may also prompt further studies on criteria-related validity using various personality assessment methods.

Self-powered, anti-detectable wireless near-field communication strategy based on mechano-driven Maxwell’s displacement current

The information (info) propagation via mechanical process, such as acoustic signals, is a ubiquitous and straightforward communication paradigm in our everyday interactions. Nevertheless, this process inevitably confronts obstacles arising from the absorption and reflection exerted by the medium. Herein, a concept of tribo-charge-driven Maxwell’s displacement current-based near-field wireless communication (TMNWC) is proposed. Typically, a triboelectric nanogenerator actuated by dynamic mechano-info is connected to the emission electrode, facilitating the transmission of the coupled displacement current. Subsequently, an electric signal is induced at the near-field receiver electrode, culminating in the realization of info penetration through the obstacle. Furthermore, the influence of electrode structure parameters on signal transmission attenuation is systematically studied both in theory and experiment. Compared to traditional wireless communication strategies, TMNWC possesses unparalleled stealth and anti-detection capabilities, attributes derived from its inherent simplicity, material versatility, and passive operation. Leveraging these features, the efficacy of TMNWC in security applications is exemplified by its successful implementation in hostage rescue and intelligence listening. This TMNWC scheme may provide an alternative toolkit for the transmission of mechanical information in specific scenarios.

Police Hostage Rescue Operation: Assessing Nigerian Police Alertness and Responses to Kidnapped Victims

Kidnapping and hostage-taking have plagued Nigeria for over two decades, beginning with protests in the country’s Niger-Delta region. Afterward, the phenomenon has spread like a Harmattan bush fire across the country’s length and breadth. Although the phenomenon evolved from sheer agitation it became the most thriving business, even though it is on the wrong side of morality. Evidently, the spectacle has drawn tremendous literature and a crow’s nest that range from its evolution to politics, socioeconomic consequences and alternative negotiation, among other concerns and worries associated with it. Going by studies, the phenomenon has resulted in atrocious ransom payments, inhumane treatment and even deaths of helpless victims. Connectedly, the unpleasant experiences of victims, especially at the hands of their captors, inform this discourse on the alertness and responses of the Nigerian Police to kidnapped victims, which is what has remained either under-assessed or significantly under-examined. Relying significantly on both primary and secondary data, this article assesses the main security institution entrusted with the internal security of the nation, viz-à-viz its response to victims’ calls via operational tools, manpower, training and education, intelligence and synergy with sister security agencies. This article concludes that inadequacies and deficiencies in these variables have stalled the timely rescue of victims by police forces in the country.

“Phantom operators”: special operations forces and asymmetric warfare in Northern Nigeria.

ABSTRACT Across the world, Special Operations Forces (SOFs) play a leading role in asymmetric warfare. The unique trainings, skills, weapons, and equipment of these elite Tier 1 operators, differentiates them from conventional forces, making them the preferred choice in complex environments. SOFs are ideally deployed for short operations, which include direct action missions, hostage rescue, hunting high-value targets (HVTs), mobility operations, intelligence operations, airborne operations, counterterrorism (CT), counterinsurgency (COIN) operations, and covert operations among others. While the literature has mostly focused on the utility of major powers’ SOFs in the Global War on Terror (GWOT), with little attention on Africa’s SOF’s, this paper examines the origins, evolution, composition, and deployments of Nigeria’s SOFs specifically in the Northeast, Northcentral, and Northwest theatres of operation, against the Boko Haram insurgency and armed banditry, respectively. Drawing on primary data from interviews with key informants and other secondary data sources, the paper interrogates the successes, challenges, and prospects of Nigeria’s SOFs. The strategic utility and overreliance on Nigeria’s SOFs by political leaders and the Military’s High Command puts a strain on their strategic value which potentially undermines their strategic efficacy as a force-multiplier in the long run, against unconventional threats.

A survey on security and privacy issues of UAVs

In the 21st century, the industry of drones, also known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), has witnessed a rapid increase with its large number of airspace users. The tremendous benefits of this technology in civilian applications such as hostage rescue and parcel delivery will integrate smart cities in the future. Nowadays, the affordability of commercial drones expands their usage on a large scale. However, the development of drone technology is associated with vulnerabilities and threats due to the lack of efficient security implementations. Moreover, the complexity of UAVs in software and hardware triggers potential security and privacy issues. Thus, posing significant challenges for the industry, academia, and governments.In this paper, we extensively survey the security and privacy issues of UAVs by providing a systematic classification at four levels: Hardware-level, Software-level, Communication-level, and Sensor-level. In particular, for each level, we thoroughly investigate (1) common vulnerabilities affecting UAVs for potential attacks from malicious actors, (2) existing threats that are jeopardizing the civilian application of UAVs, (3) active and passive attacks performed by the adversaries to compromise the security and privacy of UAVs, (4) possible countermeasures and mitigation techniques to protect UAVs from such malicious activities. In addition, we summarize the takeaways that highlight lessons learned about UAVs’ security and privacy issues. Finally, we conclude our survey by presenting the critical pitfalls and suggesting promising future research directions for security and privacy of UAVs.

Visceral Politics and Its Impact on US Foreign Policy Decision-Making

Abstract Growing understanding of the connections between the mind and the body, and of the ways in which interoception influences decision-making, may well revolutionize our understanding of how decisions are reached in foreign policy analysis, drawing attention to a phenomenon which has been termed “visceral politics.” Applying the somatic marker theory to an understanding of political decision-making, this manuscript briefly analyses President William McKinley's decision-making prior to the Spanish–American War, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance's decisions about the Iran hostage rescue mission, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's Kosovo decision-making, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ decisions about the Bin Laden raid, and National Security Adviser Susan Rice's decision-making about Syria. We draw these five disparate but related examples together in order to illustrate the impact of somatic markers on foreign policy decision-making, a role hitherto neglected in the literature.

Regime change on the pretext of forcible protection of nationals abroad: selected case studies including Ukraine, Dominican and Egypt

Since 1945, multiple States, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, France, and Belgium have consistently asserted that protectingthe lives of their citizens caught in violence abroad remains an acceptablejustification for the use of force. The view has been widely accepted by theinternational community, at least concerning hostage rescue and crisis evacuation military operations. Quite a scarce State practice regarding the thirdform of extraterritorial defence of nationals, forcible protection in the hostState, is much more controversial in reception. The Article aims to discuss thepermissibility of such protection on the example of the February 2022 Russianinvasion of Ukraine. As Moscow failed to achieve what was likely its main political objective, to overthrow the Kyiv government in a blitzkrieg militarycampaign, the analysis also addresses the question of whether the contemporary concept of extraterritorial protection of nationals from imminent dangerinvolves permissibility of regime change in the targeted State. The result ofthe analysis is unambiguous. Based on an examination of State practice, military doctrine documents and a cursory review of literature, the Article rejectsthe Kremlin’s claims involving both protection of Russian citizens in the territory of Ukraine and regime change in the targeted country.

Forensic medical characteristics of firearm exit wounds in cases with armour protection

BackgroundThe very limited literature about the characteristic morphology of the firearm ammunition wounds in the body armored victims led authors to conduct an experimental study to understand this issue of great forensic and medico-legal importance. PurposeAn autopsy of a male sniper was fraught with a challenge to differentiate between a firearm ammunition entry and exit wound. He was wearing body armour when shot at during a hostage rescue operation. The study was conducted to standardize the findings and answer the queries in such cases of forearms with inherent legal implications. MethodologyThe modifying effect of the clothing and the armour on the firearm injuries in humans was studied by test firings on animal (pig) cadaver tissues, which has closest simulation to the human body tissues. These firings were preceded by X-ray fluorescence, and followed by stereoscopic and spectroscopic examinations. All the events were recorded by the high-resolution video camera shoots. ResultsAn extensive cavitation in the form of a cone shaped crater, and a tissue defect with precipitated edges and patching of the epidermal layers indicated a firearm entry and exit wound, respectively, in victims wearing body armour at the time of the firearm injury.

The SYSTEM IDENTIFICATION OF FRIEND AND ENEMY USING NIGHT VISION CAMERA ON BATTLE ROBOT (CQB) USING PATTERN RECOGNITION METHOD

Abstract – Indonesian Army has the main task of protecting against enemy attacks, which include forest battles as well as urban battles. The obstacle faced today is that in the process of urban warfare operations, infiltration and hostage rescue in buildings are still less efficient and optimal. The robot is designed with a system that can identify friends and foes using a Night Vision camera and the Pattern Recognition method. Pattern recognition is a symbolic grouping automatically that is done by a computer to find out objects or patterns. The results of the Night vision camera test are able to detect human objects with a maximum distance of 6 meters. This night vision scope has a fairly large accuracy rate of 83%. And light intensity has an influence on the identification process because if the light intensity is more than 200 lux then the system is not able to identify the object.

Detection of Quasi-Static Trapped Human Being Using Mono-Static UWB Life-Detection Radar

In practical situations such as hostage rescue, earthquake and other similar events, the ultra-wideband (UWB) life-detection radar echo response from the respiration motion of the trapped person is always quasi-/non-periodic in respiration frequency or very weak in respiration amplitude, which can be called quasi-static vital sign. Although it is an extremely difficult task, considering the economic cost, the detection ability of the traditional UWB life-detection radars with only a pair of transceiver antennas is desired to be enhanced for locating the quasi-static trapped human being. This article proposes two different detection methods for quasi-static trapped human beings through the single/multiple observation points, which corresponds to the single-/multi-station radar operating mode, respectively. Proof-of-principle experiments were carried out by our designed radar prototypes, validating the effectiveness of the proposed methods.

Data analysis of simulated WoT-based anti-crime scenario

This study proposes a novel WoT concept for improving the current police work on anti-terrorist. In order to prove the feasibility and effectiveness, the presented WoT-based police rescue squad force (RSF) concept is modelled and simulated by a Monte Carlo simulation. The current RSF and WoT-based are two alternatives that are analysed for the comparison. The simulation results show that a significant difference between the current RSF and WoT-based exists. The information gained from the simulation reveals the WoT-based RSF can support the commander's decision makers in performing the anti-terrorist task with less risk, less cost with high effectiveness. This study makes an exceedingly contribution which the WoT-based RSF concept is viable and can easily improve police performance in anti-terrorist and hostage rescue tasks.

GERENCIAMENTO DE UMA SITUAÇÃO DE CRISE

O artigo pretende descrever o gerenciamento de uma crise realizado pelo GovernoPeruano (GP) durante uma situação específica, o resgate de reféns na Embaixadado Japão (abril de 1997) através da operação “Chavín de Huantar”. Primeiro, serãoapresentados os antecedentes do terrorismo no Peru, o contexto geral do paísem dezembro de 1996 e o objetivo deste artigo. A seguir, será exposta a situaçãoda captura da Embaixada do Japão realizada pelos integrantes do MovimentoRevolucionário Tupac Amaru (MRTA), bem como suas principais motivações edemandas expostas ao GP. Na sequência, será detalhado o gerenciamento do GPpara enfrentar essa crise, abrangendo aspectos de estratégias de solução, tomadade decisões, níveis do planejamento, negociações, comunicações durante umacrise, ciclo de respostas, relação do planejador com as mídias sociais, operações decontraterrorismo e particularidades da operação militar. Por fim, serão estabelecidasas conclusões relevantes ao gerenciamento do GP, bem como as lições aprendidasdesta operação. O presente artigo foi elaborado empregando o método de revisãode literatura, apoiando-se em artigos, produções acadêmicas, entrevistas, livros,jornais, relatórios e palestras oficiais do Exército Peruano.

Salivary cytokines as a biomarker of social stress in a mock rescue mission

Using salivary inflammatory markers as a noninvasive biomonitoring technique within natural social contexts has become increasingly important to link social and biological responses. Many studies have associated circulating cytokines to distinct aspects of physical activity and social/emotional behavior; however, they have not been linked to success and failure in a naturalistic setting for military personnel performing tasks. In this study, salivary cytokines were studied in a group of fifteen Air Force Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC; 14 males, 1 female) subjects performing three mock hostage rescue missions, designed to prompt responses associated with baseline, success, and failure. Each subject completed the tasks of the mission individually and again in randomly assigned teams. Participants were outfitted via direct skin contact with comfortable external Zephyr™ sensors to monitor heart rate, breathing rate, and activity while completing each task. Saliva samples were collected before and after the completion of each mission, and cytokine levels were quantified using enzyme-labelled immunoassay (ELISA) beads. These biomarkers were used to describe the body’s immune response to success and failure when performing a mock rescue mission individually and in a team. All measured cytokine levels increased following failed missions performed individually, compared to cytokine levels associated with successful missions. When completing the tasks as a team, there were no significant differences in cytokine response between success and failure; however, being in a team stimulated an increased pre-mission cytokine response, suggesting the concept of teamwork and performing with peers for the first time had a more significant impact than the notion of failing. Additionally, none of the cytokines tested for individual missions correlated to physical activity markers (heart rate, breathing rate, activity) measured during performance. These results indicate a potentially new noninvasive method of determining social stress levels under taxing conditions.

3D Aircraft Path Planning for Hostage Rescue by Artificial Immunity Algorithm

The goal of aviation route planning for hostage rescue is to quickly design a safe and concealed path for aircraft hijacking under complex and unfamiliar circumstance. In this article, basic Artificial Immunity Algorithm (AIA) is improved by consideration of helicopter flyability and time restriction. And a threat model has been proposed through an appropriate simplification operation in in-time environment. Threat models are varied with different complicate environments designed. AIA can successfully plan safe paths by the models, which verify the method’s validity. Under more complex environment, the method can calculate a new path by performing the operation of local flight segment adjustment or re-planning the whole flight path. When the threat models being in dynamically updating state, AIA should be run with negotiation between safe degree and time remained, which allows it to play an active rather a passive role. This would help to enhance the ability of response ability to emergent incidents integrated plan time, aircraft safety, flyability and manoeuvrability in rescue.

Impact of a Simulated Stress Training Program on the Tactical Shooting Performance of SWAT Trainees

ABSTRACTPurpose: To create a high-stress shooting among the crowd (SAC) program and to examine its effectiveness in reducing SWAT trainees’ stress level and their shooting performance in a simulated hostage-rescue situation. Method: After the SAC program was created, it was evaluated using a pretest and posttest experimental design: 98 young male SWAT trainees were randomly divided into experiment and control groups, with the former group trained in hostage rescue, shooting with real persons (high stress), and the latter group trained with “dummy” men (low stress); training for both lasted three days. Their shooting performance was assessed by a tactical shooting test in both high- and low-stress tests in a counterbalanced order, before and after the training, and monitored during the training, as were their stress levels by a set of physical (heart rate [HR] and heart rate recovery time [HRRt]), psychological (salivary cortisol and α-amylase), and self-reported anxiety measures. Results: The SAC program created needed high-stress for hostage rescue situations as reflected in increased physical, psychological, and anxiety scores and reduced shooting performance. Even with short SAC training, SWAT trainees’ capacity in handling high stress and tactical shooting performance were significantly improved. HR, HRRt, and anxiety tests have been found to be effective in monitoring stress and should be a part of future SWAT training. Conclusion: A SAC program involving real people was created, and its effectiveness was confirmed using a pretest and posttest experimental design.

Special Weapons and Tactics operations

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to test the effects of differential police training on hostage rescue effectiveness. More specifically, this study looks at the types of police trainings that are the most effective in preparing Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) officers in dealing with hostage rescue situations.Design/methodology/approachThis study employs a cross-sectional design. The analyses are based on a national sample of 341 law enforcement agencies, which employed at least 50 sworn officers.FindingsTo improve the SWAT response effectiveness in hostage rescue situations, this study shows that two factors play a significant role, namely, the training for hostage rescue situations and an increase in the average training hours per month. Among the types of trainings that were thought to be effective but did not show a significant effect in this present study were training for crowd control/civil unrest, having military training, and training for building searches.Practical implicationsIncreased training hours specifically designed to address hostage situations increases the likelihood of successful hostage extractions. Thus, police departments should have specific training hours set aside for hostage situations.Originality/valueThis study attempts to identify specific types of police trainings that have a positive effect on improving SWAT effectiveness in dealing with hostage situations. There is a very limited number of research works on SWAT operations. This study, therefore, adds to this very limited research area of policing.

Risk of Hearing Loss Injury Caused by Multiple Flash Bangs on a Crowd

A flash bang is a non-lethal explosive device that delivers intensely loud bangs and bright lights to suppress potentially dangerous targets. It is usually used in crowd control, hostage rescue and numerous other missions. We construct a model for assessing quantitatively the risk of hearing loss injury caused by multiple flash bangs. The model provides a computational framework for incorporating the effects of the key factors defining the situation and for testing various sub-models for these factors. The proposed model includes 1) uncertainty in the burst point of flash bang mortar, 2) randomness in the dispersion of multiple submunitions after the flash bang mortar burst, 3) decay of acoustic impulse from a single submunition to an individual subject along the ground surface, 4) the effective combined sound exposure level on an individual subject caused by multiple submunitions at various distances from the subject, and 5) randomness in the spatial distribution of subjects in the crowd. With the mathematical model formulated, we seek to characterize the overall effect of flash bang mortar in the form of an effective injury area. We carry out simulations to study the effects of uncertainty and randomness on the risk of hearing loss injury of the crowd. The proposed framework serves as a starting point for a comprehensive assessment of hearing loss injury risk, taking into consideration all realistic and relevant features of flash bang mortar. It also provides a platform for testing and updating component models.

Between a rock and a hard place of geopolitically sensitive threats – critical incidents and decision inertia

ABSTRACTWhile the SAFE-T model of decision making emphasizes naturalistic decision making, its potential for cross-comparative analysis of incidents with global implications remains underutilized, which the current paper aims to address. To this end, it draws upon open-source reports from unclassified American, British and Russian intelligence reports to explore the management of three types of 10 high-profile geopolitically sensitive threats from across the globe (verifying potential terrorist identity, hostage rescue and national/international security). Defining features of such incidents include decision makers’ ability to prospectively model competing scenarios in which they must select between options and where every outcome looks aversive and high risk (‘damned if you do or damned if you don’t decisions’). A frequent consequence of such calculations is ‘decision inertia’ (a failure to execute an important, irrevocable decision resulting in non-optimal consequences), or ‘implementation failure’ (a failure to make a choice). Combining the benefit of the theoretical framework and hindsight knowledge of the analyzed incidents, the paper facilitates theoretical understanding of decision inertia and failures to act.Encouraging the consideration of multiple scenario endings contingent on a wide spectrum of factors and unique cultural-historical context, it also helps identify past decision errors in order to inform assessment and management of similar geopolitical threats in the future.

MHHT-Based Method for Analysis of Micro-Doppler Signatures for Human Finer-Grained Activity Using Through-Wall SFCW Radar

Ultra-wideband radar-based penetrating detection and recognition of human activities has become a focus on remote sensing in various military applications in recent years, such as urban warfare, hostage rescue, and earthquake post-disaster rescue. However, an excellent micro-Doppler signature (MDS) extracting method of human motion with high time-frequency resolution, outstanding anti-interference ability, and extensive adaptability, which aims to provide favorable and more detailed features for human activity recognition and classification, especially in the non-free space detection environment, is in great urgency. To cope with the issue, a multiple Hilbert-Huang transform (MHHT) method is proposed for high-resolution time-frequency analysis of finer-grained human activity MDS hidden in ultra-wideband (UWB) radar echoes during the through-wall detection environment. Based on the improved HHT with effective intrinsic mode function (IMF) selection according to the cosine similarity (CS) principle, the improved HHT is applied to each channel signal in the effective channel scope of the UWB radar signal and then integrated along the range direction. The activities of swinging one or two arms while standing at a spot 3 m from a wall were used to validate the abilities of the proposed method for extracting and separating the MDS of different moving body structures with a high time-frequency resolution. Simultaneously, the corresponding relationship between the frequency components in MHHT-based spectra and structures of the moving human body was demonstrated according to the radar Doppler principle combined with the principle of human body kinematics. Moreover, six common finer-grained human activities and a piaffe at different ranges under the through-wall detection environment were exploited to confirm the adaptability of the novel method for different activities and pre-eminent anti-interference ability under a low signal-noise-clutter ratio (SNCR) environment, which is critical for remote sensing in various military application, such as urban warfare, hostage rescue, earthquake post-disaster rescue.

Hostage-Taking Rescue Operations at Sea. Duties and Limits under International Law and Human Rights Protection

The paper analyses the exercise of enforcement jurisdiction at sea to rescue hostages in time of peace. Particular attention is given to the different jurisdiction criteria that arise at sea and the difficulties of coordinate them. Furthermore, the study analyses the use of force to rescue hostages at sea and its limits under international law and human rights law. Particular attention is paid to the legitimacy of hostage rescue operations conducted by the national State of hostages, when the flag State is unable or unwilling to intervene. Finally, if kidnapping is used systematically as criminal strategy, in a de iure condendo (law as it should be) view, it is evaluated the possibility that, unilaterally or with the authorization of the UN Security Council, one or more States may adopt enforcement measures due to fulfil the erga omnes duty to safeguard the high seas as a community interests and to protect the right to life.