Experts: Suicide bombings not likely here

Jerd Smith, News Staff Writer

Published December 4, 2001 at midnight

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Local security experts said Monday that the chances Colorado will be the target of suicide bomb attacks are slim to none, but not zero.

Attacks such as those in Israel, New York and Washington are among the most difficult to prevent, said Sue Mencer, executive director of the Colorado Department of Public Safety.

The best defense Colorado and the U.S. have is intelligence-gathering, Mencer said.

"You can't really protect people against these kinds of things. If they're in a shopping mall, it's difficult. You just have to make sure that law enforcement has its ear to the ground," she said.

Tommy Grier, who coordinates the state's office of emergency management, said chances of a suicide bomb attack in Denver are "slim to none."

Others are less confident. Shaul Gabbay, a professor at the University of Denver's Graduate School of International Studies and a Middle East expert, said that suicide bombers aren't as likely to strike here as elsewhere, but no American should discount the threat posed by terrorist cells operating in the United States.

"It would be harder now given all the security measures we've taken since Sept. 11," Gabbay said. "But there is no reason to discount the theory that there are dormant cells here. There is definitely a chance something could happen. It might be in a year or it might be two years from now, depending on what's happening in Afghanistan. . . . We cannot take any risks."

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