Modern terrorism challenges our conventional methods and strategies for combating hostile threats. Seemingly random suicide bombings carried out by small cells often protected by state actors, and enabled by access to information networks via the Internet form the backdrop for this new class of threats.
The accessibility by these new terrorists to a panoply of both improvised and modern weapons, possibly including weapons of mass destruction has greatly amplified this class of threats against modern civilization.
At 1:10 p.m. Feb. 28, Joseph Almog will discuss the use of forensic science as a tool for combating modern terrorism during an unclassified Director’s Colloquium in the Physics Building Auditorium at Technical Area 3. The talk is open to all badge holders.
Specific examples of how forensic technologies have served to prevent terrorism and to identify perpetrators of terrorist acts will be presented. Specifically, Almog helped develop field tests for crime-scene investigators, methods for the visualization of latent fingerprints and methods for detecting and identifying explosives, including non-nitrogen-based explosives such as organo-peroxides.
Almog is an internationally recognized expert in forensic science. He is currently professor of forensic chemistry of the Casali Institute of Applied Chemistry in Jerusalem, Israel.
Before joining the Casali Institute, Almog served 13 years in the National Crime Laboratory of Israel where he attained the rank of brigadier general. In this position, he was involved in analyzing many acts of terrorism carried out against Israeli citizens.
While Almog will discuss several of these events, he will focus the colloquium on the application of forensic techniques he helped develop and on evolving diagnostic techniques that can detect and hopefully deter and prevent new acts of terrorism.
Almog recently was appointed head of the scientific committee for counterterrorism technologies for Israel’s National Security Council.
The talk will be broadcast on LABNET Channel 9 and on desktop computers using Real Media Stream and IPTV technology.
For more information on the Director’s Colloquium Program, go to http://stb.lanl.gov/colloquium online.
