NY police poised to thwart bombers

The New York Police Department is providing officers with specialisedtraining to stop any suicide bombers at Sunday’s New Year’s Evecelebration, when up to 2mn people will flood the streets of TimesSquare, officials said on Thursday.The stepped-up training is in response to an attempted bombing in a Times Square subway station walkway on December 11.It comes on top of increasingly stringent security for the city’s NewYear’s Eve celebration in the years since the attacks of September 11,2001.The New York Police Department will also deploy observation teamstrained to spot snipers, increase the number of explosive-detecting dogsand position more officers throughout the area this year.Police have said they will incorporate lessons learned from what theyhave labelled as three terrorist attacks in the city in the past 15months, in addition to their ongoing analysis of all attacks worldwide.That intelligence will form part of the massive security operation forthe “ball drop” celebration, a tradition that dates to 1907 and is nowtelevised around the world.“You will see an increase in heavy weapons, bomb squad personnel,radiological detection teams, and our technology to include over 1,000cameras in and around the area of Times Square for the event,” theNYPD’s chief of counterterrorism, James Waters, told a news conference,two days before the event.Officers involved in the New Year’s Eve security operation will receive atactical bulletin and a training video on suicide bombers that theywill be able to review on their department-issued phones startingFriday.“We owe it to the cops to give them some kind of guidelines,” Waters said.The training material will include instructions on protecting bystandersif officers suspect someone has a bomb and guidance on apprehending anddisarming suspects with the assistance of the bomb squad, he said.Police will also be on the lookout for snipers in response to the mass shooting at a Las Vegas music festival on Oct.1, when a 64-year-old American opened fire from his 32nd-floor hotel room, killing 58 people and wounding some 500.Detectives posted in hotels will keep an eye on guests, and additionalemergency services and critical response teams will be on hand, PoliceCommissioner James O’Neill said.O’Neill declined to say how many of the department’s 36,000 officerswill work on New Year’s Eve, in order to keep would-be attackersguessing.People who want to see the New Year’s Eve musical acts and otherentertainment up close in Times Square will have to pass by dogs trainedto detect explosives and heavily armed officers, go through amagnetometer to check for weapons, have their bags inspected, and thenrepeat all those steps a second time.Police will again use dump trucks filled with sand, police cars andcement blocks to close streets starting at 11am on Sunday. About 125parking garages in the vicinity will be emptied of all cars and sealed.Even so, police acknowledged a possible suicide bomber could manage toget close to large crowds of people before the checkpoints are set up,as evident by the December 11 attack.On that day, police said, a Bangladeshi man set off a homemade pipe bombstrapped to his body in a subway pedestrian tunnel beneath TimesSquare, wounding himself and two bystanders.Asked how to stop someone with such an intent, Waters said, “As a last resort: deadly physical force”.