Concerns grow about attacks on rail systems by domestic terrorists

Concerns grow about attacks on rail systems by domestic terrorists

Published 19 January 2015

 

 

Between September 2001 and December 2011, at least838 attacks on passenger rail systems have killed more than 1,370 people. As DHS officials focus on assuring the American public that security agencies remain on high alert, last week’s incidents on two of the nation’s major metropolitan rail systems raised more concerns about public safety and preparedness.

The terror attacks in Paris have renewed a sense of insecurity among residents of major U.S. cities. One of the latest Islamic State threats calls on its supporters to target and bomb key U.S. targets, including public transportation hubs, and even police stations. Law enforcement officers in New York have been ordered to remain vigilant. “Pay close attention to people as they approach and look for their hands as they approach you,” reads an internal New York Police Department safety memo which the Daily News obtained.
As DHS officials focus on assuring the American public that security agencies remain on high alert, last week’s incidents on two of the nation’s major metropolitan rail systems raised more concerns about public safety and preparedness.
Last Monday, one person died and eighty-four fell ill after heavy smoke filled the L’Enfant Plaza Metro in Washington, D.C. Officials believe an “electrical arcing event” caused the incident. “The train did not derail. There was no fire on the train. The arcing event was on the wayside, involving the third rail and the supply cables going to the third rail,” National Transportation Safety Board Investigator Mike Flanigon said. “The early indications are this did not involve terrorism but involved a mechanical failure that occurred,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters.
The following day, roughly 150 New York Fire Department firefighters responded to a three-alarm fire at a construction site in Penn Station that began before 2.30 a.m. The fire, labeled an accident, injured two firefighters. Western Journalism notes that an ISIS supporter published multiple threats on Twitter a few hours before the fire, warning that “tomorrow New York will burn” and predicting a “3:00 a.m. bomb.”
From the 1997 New York City subway-bombing plot to the attacks in Madrid (2004) and London (2005), terrorists have targeted Western rail systems. Between September 2001 and December 2011, at least 838 attacks on passenger rail systems have killed more than 1,370 people. Al-Qaeda militants in Guantanamo told interrogators in 2003 of a plot to target the D.C. metro rail system, and in 2010, Afghan-born jihadist Najibullah Zazi pleaded guilty to terrorism charges after planning to blow up New York subways. Last year, two al-Qaeda-backed terrorists were arrested after plotting to bomb and derail Canada’s rail service between Toronto and Penn Station.
Some commuters involved in the D.C. metro incident reported that the evacuation process was “poorly managed.” “It’s disheartening because there did not appear to be an emergency plan,” said longtime metro rider Lesley Lopez. Chris Geldart, director of the District of Columbia’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency insists that the response was as efficient as possible giving the circumstances. “We had our firefighters go down in a smoke-filled subway tunnel with 200 people on a train and all of the people coming out of the station itself. To … do an event where we go through and do what we call a mass casualty — assess all the folks and get 84 people transferred all in the amount time that they did it — that’s a good response.”