AIR Worldwide updates terrorism model for the US
The changes are based on a reassessment of the terrorist threat by a team of leading experts that included the FBI’s former head of counterterrorism and members of the CIA responsible for developing terrorist group profiling.
“The expert team considered the ability of a full range of terrorist groups to plan and accomplish a wide variety of attacks. The update reflects the reduced capability for large-scale coordinated attacks in the United States from al-Qaida and its allies, as well as an increased reliance on lower-severity weapons requiring less expertise, training, and development,” said Jack Seaquist, Assistant Vice President at AIR Worldwide.
The team of experts also considered recent studies published by the intelligence community, such as the 2010 study by the New York State Intelligence Center, which examined 32 terrorism plots since 9/11 against the US and compared the risk to various target types.
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The AIR target/landmark database, which includes a full spectrum of potential targets where attacks are likely to occur, was updated with more than 1,000 locations added.
These included 181 prominent new buildings, 161 new corporate headquarters, 109 additional federal buildings, 33 new sports venues and 424 new major hotels. The database consists of more than 300,000 landmarks, 100 of which are considered ‘trophy targets’.
“AIR’s probabilistic terrorism model has been updated to reflect the current threat and supports sound risk management practices, including scenario planning, range-based loss estimates, and stress testing,” continued Mr Seaquist.
Additional enhancements to Version 13.0 of the AIR US terrorism model include updated assessments of the most vulnerable sectors, such as aviation, ground transportation, and economic infrastructure and an improved flexibility in handling terrorism exclusions and policy conditions.
It can now model the impact of terrorist events caused by domestic and/or international groups, as well as from conventional and/or chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) weapons.
