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| Academic Courses and Presentations |
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The Beslan Terrorist School Siege and Lessons for America
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Archangel® Group, Ltd.'s senior consultant and instructor, John Giduck, arrived at the Beslan Middle School No. 1 in North Ossetia, Russia, at the conclusion of the battle by Russian Special Forces to retake the school. He spent months investigating all aspects of this attack, including many interviews with Russian Special Forces, government officials, and Beslan townspeople. Archangel® presents up to 8-hour seminars on his investigation into how the terrorists' plan was formed, intelligence developed for the assault, defenses deployed, and how ultimately negotiations failed and why, resulting in more than 300 dead in a ten hour battle. As well, this seminar covers the government's plan in handling the crisis, what went wrong, and what went right. Vulnerabilities of U.S. schools to this same type of assault and necessary changes in security to protect our children are presented in detail. Diagrams, video, and never before seen photos from Archangel's® representatives are included. Archangel® Group, Ltd. was the only American agency that conducted an on-scene investigation of this tragedy as it unfolded.
Mr. Giduck authored his book, Terror At Beslan: A Russian Tragedy with Lessons for America's Schools, to detail the history leading up to this terrorist event, as well all aspects of the siege and the aftermath. The book is available here.
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Multiple Terrorist Doctrine Training
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Prior to the Columbine Massacre in April 1999 law enforcement in America was uniformly trained to never move through an area that had not been thoroughly searched and secured; a slow and painstaking process. Since Columbine and the proven ineffectiveness of the prior tactical approach, the "Active Shooter Doctrine" was developed and every police and sheriff's department in the country well schooled in the necessity of moving quickly to the sound of gunfire. But this new development in law enforcement protocols is only effective in cases where there are one or two active shooters, who remain together, with no other threats to responding agencies. At the Beslan School siege in Russia in September 2004, as with other terrorist sieges before that, numerous terrorists held hundreds of people hostage.
In lightning raids, well trained and heavily armed terrorists take dozens, if not hundreds, of hostages, secure entire buildings, divide into teams with assigned sectors of defense against an attack by police or military. They set up ambushes, booby traps, and entrenched fire positions. All of this renders the Active Shooter Doctrine inapplicable, necessitating an entirely new tactical approach when police and military must move through areas quickly, while being alert to hidden assailants, ambushes and numerous areas in which hostages are held, all the while moving toward the sound of various battles. This course covers steps to be taken when responding to a true terrorist-hostage siege, when to attack and when to secure the scene, how to establish a secure area, how to conduct negotiations, how negotiators and assault teams must work together, in addition to actual planning of an assault and conducting that assault.
This can be taught as an academic course only, or as a combined lecture and tactical exercise scenario program.
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Mumbai, India Attack Presentation
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The world was stunned by yet another strategic level Islamist terrorist attack, victimizing innocent citizens, Westerners and Jews in the city of Mumbai, India that took place from 26 to 29 November 2008. No one was ready for at least ten Pakistani and al Qaeda trained terrorists striking fully nine buildings, detonating two taxi cabs, and killing almost 200 people with automatic weapons, IEDs and grenades. Nor could anyone have predicted three of those attacks devolving into hostage sieges that ultimately saw the deaths of every hostage. One month after this horrific strategic level terrorist attack, Archangel sent three representatives to Mumbai to conduct an investigation and assessment of these attacks. Comprised of John Giduck (author of Terror at Beslan, and co-author of The Green Beret In You), Major Joseph Bail, a 35-plus year police veteran from the City of Chester, Pennsylvania, and long-time SWAT commander, 20-year police veteran, SWATand dive team leader, Ernie Manerchia, the Archangel team interviewed top level military and special forces officers, including the operations commander, assault team members, police, hotel and restaurant employees, accessed government and military reports and evidence, viewed crime scene photos of the attack sites, and traversed every path of the terrorist attack teams, from their insertion on shore to their division into five units and ultimate attacks. Information as to how these attacks were planned, intelligence and surveillance conducted, targets selected, and types of attacks chosen for the respective sites is critical to law enforcement in continuing to prepare for terror attacks on American soil. As well, the tactics of the terrorists and how a rapid police response in the U.S. could lead to greater potential tactical hurdles must be understood and solutions devised. This classroom lecture presentation provides the evidence developed by the Indian police and government, photographs of the attack sites, and a detailed walk through of every known aspect of this attack.
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Terrorist-Hostage Negotiations
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This necessary course provides in-depth training on the dramatic differences between U.S. law enforcement's traditional hostage and critical incident negotiations approach, and terrorist-hostage situations. The training is based on years of experience in that realm from Russia, the Middle East, and the U. S. This course is divided into lecture and practical instruction, and is unsurpassed in scope and focus.
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Narco-Terrorism - Home and Abroad
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Conservatively, 90% of all terrorism is funded either directly or indirectly with drug money. This in-depth course explores the evolution of the drug trade from its foreign roots to the street level end result. Recent developments in relationships between international terrorism organizations and global organized crime groups is presented, including the joint efforts of these entities to bring drugs into the U.S., along with illegal immigrants and agents, weapons and explosives. In addition, this program tracks the ill-gotten proceeds and explains the roles of those involved at every level.
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Terrorism and Global Organized Crime
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The history of various organized crime and terrorist groups is examined, including recent information on the development of relationships between the international terror organizations and organized crime groups. Commonality of crime, joint efforts at criminal episodes and combined resources between the two that threaten the U.S. today are all analyzed and presented.
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Russian Organized Crime in the U.S.
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Called the greatest threat to American law enforcement today by FBI Director Louis Freeh, Russian - or former Soviet - organized crime has exploded across the globe. Its broad reach has affected almost every aspect of trade, commerce, international relations and crime in the United States. Every day American police confront elements of Russian OC operations, often without the ability to recognize the phenomenon they are confronting. This course examines the history of Russian organized crime, its modern development and exportation to the U.S. and other countries. Crimes engaged in, the threat to American and law enforcement, organizational structure and members at all levels are presented.
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School Security and Survival
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What is necessary to prepare our schools, school security and police to be able to (1) prevent, (2) defend against, and (3) successfully respond to a terror attack against our children? Based on the blueprint of terror attacks in Israel, Russia and elsewhere in which hundreds of hostages were taken in drawn-out sieges, including the Beslan School siege in southern Russia, this course presents hard-hitting information on exactly what must be done to prepare, and what the outcome will be if it occurs.
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Virginia Tech Massacre
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The Virginia Tech massacre (VT) briefing examines the evolution of tactics in school attacks committed by disenfranchised and disaffected American adults and children. Detailing the rise in both actual attacks and those planned (but prevented) the briefing demonstrates how even our own untrained citizens are studying the tactics of those who came before them, and further evolving the manner in which the attacks are carried out to present law enforcement and schools with the greatest tactical hurdles possible. The briefing provides highlights and details of the most recent major attacks – from Columbine to Bailey (CO), Nickel Mines (PA), and ultimately VT – many of which are unknown to the general public. The spectrum of extreme tactical threats to schools is presented, with an analysis of the elements of each to help schools and LE create a predictive model of behavior for both its students and citizens, but also for response. With the attack at VT being the most recent and resulting in the greatest number injured and killed, complete details of the manner in which Seung-Hui Cho studied these prior school assaults, adapted his tactics, carried out his assault plan, and the police response are provided, in addition to photos and floor plans.
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Mail Handling and Hazardous Packages
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In this short, several-hour program, even support level, administrative personnel can become adept at discerning letters and packages that may constitute a threat, whether due to explosives or weaponized agents or chemicals. To this day, no one has ever been arrested for the anthrax attacks via the U.S. mails that occurred after 9-11. Every year numerous individuals become victims of attacks conducted remotely via hand-deliveries, the mail or private carriers. Know what to do if this happens to you.
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