As the FIFA 2010 World Cup countdown approaches the two week mark, the tournament should be entering a phase where the primary focus of attention is on the arrival of the participating teams and officials. Unfortunately, the past week has instead seen an escalation in concerns about a possible terrorist strike during the event. In light of these events we thought it appropriate to revisit the threat of terrorism and consider broad guidelines for managing terror and related risks.

For those who have not followed the media reports of the past few days, the alarm bells were set ringing on 17 May when a German news agency reported that a Saudi Arabian military officer who had been detained in Iraq for alleged connections to Al Qaeda had revealed that he had been planning a possible strike against the World Cup in South Africa. Reportedly, the alleged operative specifically pointed to possible attacks against Dutch and Danish fans in retribution for the recent publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohamed in newspapers in those countries.

Many people in South Africa, often vaunted for our reconciliation efforts, were surprised when hardly had the ink dried on that story than a local newspaper published a cartoon showing the Prophet musing that "other prophets have followers with a sense of humor". Irrespective of one's views on the question of freedom of expression in South Africa, from a World Cup security perspective the timing could not have been worse. Less than 24 hours after the publication, the Cape Town 2010 stadium was being evacuated following an alleged bomb threat.

As security risk advisors to some of the world's largest corporates, who collectively have invested tens of millions of dollars in preparations for the World Cup, attempting to quantify the terrorism threat is no light matter for us. While we draw on as many sources of data and information as possible, threat analysis and forecasting remains an inexact science and, under some conditions, may be closer to an art than a science — particularly when one is confronted with data that is ambiguous at best and contradictory at worst. For such conditions, we have developed a threat assessment model that incorporates a number of dimensions including motive, opportunity, previous incidents, facilitating and inhibiting factors, credibility of information, and a range of behavioural risk indicators. From these, we develop various scenarios and consider the probability of each scenario.

Applied to the World Cup, our terrorism threat analysis processes have until last week consistently yielded a 'low' probability across all possible scenarios, ranging from the risk of a co-ordinated strike targeting multiple venues simultaneously to that of relatively isolated and effectively symbolic gestures. As indicated in previous articles on this website, we also consistently noted that if there was one area of concern, it was tourist areas in Cape Town, such as the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront.

Having input new data last week, we have now revised our threat assessment ratings for terrorism from 'low' to 'moderate' in respect of a scenario involving a focused attack in Cape Town. While we continue to rate the prospects of a massive assault on a 9/11 scale as low, Cape Town continues to be top of our list of prospective targets, based on a variety of security driven indicators.

This system is similar to those used by national counter- terrorism agencies, including several government's terrorist threat level system. It is worth noting that system has periodically rated as high as 'severe' — meaning an attack is considered to be imminent — only to revert back to 'high' or 'moderate'. These 'downward' revisions may occur because original data proved to be inaccurate, fresh data indicated that suspected terrorists had shifted their plans, or, in isolated cases, because genuine plots had been foiled before they could be carried out.

Our assessment of the terrorist threat in Cape Town as 'moderate' therefore does not imply that the city should be avoided, but rather that it would be advisable for visitors to the center to exercise caution and, for companies, to ensure that crisis management and business continuity plans are updated and ready to be implemented in the event of an incident. These plans should include catering for the possibility that any serious incident could result in a shut-down of mobile and internet communications, temporary closure of airports and airspace, and the evacuation of hotels and restaurants in the vicinity of World Cup venues. Mustering areas, and routes to those areas, should be identified and communicated to personnel and guests in advance, together with reliable mechanisms to ensure dissemination of instructions and critical information to key persons. Clear lines of reporting and decision-making are equally important.

If there is one lesson to be learned from New York, London and Madrid, it is that in critical situations, preparedness can be a life-saving factor. Considered in this light, the precise location of the threat barometer does not really matter — rather have crisis response mechanisms in place and not need them, than discover too late that they are not there when one needs them most.