Security | New tools, new complications in fight to keep cities safe

A woman prays at the Erawan Shrine at Rajprasong intersection in Bangkok

For generations, the world’s cities have struggled to keep themselves safe.
“Wall Street Explosion Kills 30; Injures 300,” The New York Times’ front page proclaimed after a bomb ripped through New York City’s financial district. “Red Plot Seen in Blast.”
It was September 1920. The bomb was carried by a horse-drawn cart. The bombers, suspected to be Italian anarchists, were never caught.
There are times today when it can seem that back in some hazy bygone era — before a Monday evening bomb tore through a Bangkok temple, or train bombers terrorized Madrid in 2004, before two jetliners slammed into the World Trade Center on a clear September morning — the world was not so dangerous.
And in some ways the world is more deadly. Global networks of extremists can now launch attacks from Kenya to Iraq to suburban Washington, D.C., while modernity’s worst-case scenarios — nuclear or biological attacks, for example — can make that carriage-pulled Wall Street bomb seem like a toy.
And yet: “We live in a much safer world now,” said Ajai Sahni, a longtime New Delhi-based scholar of political violence, policing and security issues. “The world was far more dangerous in a time when war was an accepted method of intervention” and when angering a local political boss could mean “your head would be on a stick.”
In Bangkok this week, that comparison was little comfort. The city of about 10 million is struggling in the aftermath of an unexplained bombing Monday that killed 20 people and injured more than 120, and was further shaken the next day by a second blast that caused no casualties but police say may be related.
“We have always been so peaceful,” said Chondej Chaiyanun, a 33-year-old Bangkok furniture importer. He said the first blast had concerned him, but it was the second explosion that “made me feel like Bangkok might not be so safe.”
Once, there was a simple way for cities to thwart lone attackers, and those operating in small groups. Thick walls, from New Delhi to Florence, allowed guards to monitor access to cities and filter out some dangers.
Today, the fluidity of the modern world makes monitoring a city desperately complicated. Hundreds of thousands of commuters flood into major cities every day; the population of some American cities more than doubles on a work day. Then there is tourism: Thailand welcomed nearly 25 million tourists last year, and Jerusalem, a city of 800,000, can see over 3.5 million travelers annually.
At the same time, it has become easier for attacks to draw the attention violent extremists crave. A couple decades ago, most of the world would have seen the Bangkok bombing reduced to just a few newspaper paragraphs, but today, news of violence jumps quickly and fiercely across continents. Photos and video from the bombing began spilling onto social media almost immediately after it occurred.
Thai officials say the Bangkok bomber was no lone wolf. While offering no details, national police chief Somyot Poompanmoung said the bomber “didn’t do it alone, for sure. … they work as a network, know how to escape. No one person can do this.”
Prayuth Chan-ocha, the head of Thailand’s military junta, called the bombing “the worst incident that has ever happened in Thailand,” and vowed to track down the perpetrators.
The bombing struck a city that had already been desperate for stability. The Thai military seized power in May 2014 following months of political protests, with the goal of bringing unity. But the country remains sharply divided along social and political lines, a schism that pits the rural poor against the traditional elite.
Chondej, the furniture importer, has more confidence in the junta than in the police, widely derided in Thailand for corruption.
“I think the military can take care of the (security) situation,” he said. “We don’t have that much confidence in the efficiency of the police.”
To Sahni, good policing is a key component to keeping cities safe.
“The attack, per se, is not the point at which you can build permanent defenses,” he said.
“Any terror attack has a long series of precedents, some very minor, that led up to it. There’s the recruitment, the conspiracy, the transport of materials,” he said. “There are the phases where you have a far better method to intervene.”
He sees the answer in everything from sophisticated intelligence networks that can infiltrate suspect groups, to neighborhood watch organizations to restrictions on purchasing chemicals that can be used in explosives.
But even if that works perfectly, he said, it won’t stop every attack: “At the end of the day there is no guarantee.” Tim Sullivan, New Delhi, AP

Thai military says global terror link ‘unlikely’ in bombing

Thailand’s military junta said yesterday this week’s deadly bombing in downtown Bangkok that killed 20 people was “unlikely” to have been carried out by international terrorists. Police, meanwhile, said they suspected the plot involved at least 10 people.
But three days after the attack at a revered shrine in central Bangkok, authorities appeared to have few solid leads into the perpetrators of the deadliest attack in Thailand’s recent history.
Confusing statements emerged yesterday, with the military spokesman saying in a televised statement that investigators believe the attack wasn’t the work of international terrorists — a day after police issued an arrest warrant for the prime suspect who was described as a “foreign man.”
“Security agencies have collaborated with intelligence agencies from allied countries and have come to the same preliminary conclusion that the incident is unlikely to be linked to international terrorism,” said Col. Winthai Suvaree, the military spokesman.
But when contacted by telephone for clarification, he said that a link to global terrorism hadn’t been ruled out. “We still have to investigate in more detail,” he said.
Winthai also said on television that Chinese tourists, who were among the victims, were not the “direct target.”
The Monday evening attack at the Erawan Shrine, a popular tourist site that is known to attract Chinese visitors, left 20 people dead and more than 120 injured. Four Chinese citizens were among the dead.
No one has claimed responsibility for the blast, sparking a variety of theories into who might be behind it. One is that the blast was a revenge attack related to Thailand’s recent deportation to China of more than 100 Uighur Muslims, or that it could have been carried out by Islamist groups expanding their reach in Southeast Asia.
Police officials told reporters yesterday that authorities believed those behind the blast must have been planned it in advance, maybe a month ahead of time, and likely included a site inspection team, bomb makers, bombers and an escape team. But the comments appeared to be speculative, not based on firm evidence.
“This was a network. We think they would have needed at least 10 people,” said national police spokesman Lt. Gen. Prawut Thavornsiri.
Late yesterday, national police chief Somyot Poompanmoung described the number 10 as “theoretical,” adding police did not have 10 specific suspects. AP