Federal scientists take on bus bombs
Several agencies study how to handle suicide attacks
Federal government scientists are studying how best to deal with a suicide bomber targeting Canadian city buses, according to documents obtained by the Citizen.
In a test conducted in October 2011, scientists from Defence Research and Development Canada, along with specialists from various police forces, detonated an explosive vest on board a city bus in Temagami, Ont.
A second test was planned in Hamilton in March 2012, according to documents obtained by the Citizen under the Access to Information law. It is unclear whether that test went ahead.
The first test allowed explosives technicians to improve how they would use forensic investigation techniques in the aftermath of a suicide bomb attack on board a bus, according to Defence Research and Development Canada. DRDC is the Defence Department’s science branch.
“The data gathered during the exercise provided valuable knowledge on the impact of such an explosion on the bus’s structure,” DRDC spokesman Dale MacEachern stated in an email. “This knowledge will help contribute to identifying potential design and layout elements to lessen the impact of an explosion on a bus.”
The exercise was conducted by DRDC’s Centre for Security Science, in partnership with Transport Canada and Natural Resources Canada. Others involved included the RCMP, the Ontario Provincial Police, Emergency Management Ontario and several municipal police services.
MacEachern said the exercise was not designed in response to any known threat but was part of preparedness activities undertaken by various departments and agencies. The exercise, known as the Passenger Vehicle Blast and Projectile Mitigation Research project, was considered a success.
MacEachern noted the information is being used to develop blast models, build capacity in the field of forensic investigation techniques and to identify baseline data with regards to the pressure, shrapnel and projectile effects of a bomb ignited inside a bus.
“The environment inside of a passenger vehicle during the detonation of an explosive vest proved to be incredibly harsh in all aspects,” MacEachern added. “The blast pressures along with the damaging effects of projectiles on their test equipment installed inside the vehicles is a challenge they (researchers) are now aware of for future work.”
The second test planned for Hamilton in 2012 was to have involved some of the same organizations. It too involved the scenario of a suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest and detonating it inside a city bus.
That exercise was to have been partly funded by the federal government’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological-Nuclear and Explosives Research and Technology Initiative.
Some countries, such as Israel, have had to deal with terrorists detonating explosives on buses.
In 2001, about 40 people were injured and 15 killed in Haifa when a suicide bomber detonated the bomb he was wearing. In 2004, 16 people were killed and 100 wounded after two suicide bombings on board buses.
In July 2012, five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian driver were killed after a suicide bomber detonated explosives on a bus in Bulgaria. More than 30 were wounded. Bulgarian officials have said that one of the suspects in that attack had a Canadian passport and lived in Lebanon.
Over the last several years there has been growing concern in the U.S. that Islamic extremists, no longer capable of conducting a large-scale attack on North America, might resort to smaller incidents of terrorism, involving suicide attackers or the planting of improvised explosive devices in public locations.