Thursday 28th October 2010
Arts Seminar Room 3, New Arts Faculty Building


Interdicting Terrorist Networks: Extreme Risk…a life fighting the bomb makers

Seminar by Major Chris Hunter

Bio
Chris Hunter is a retired Major from the British Army and a former Ammunition Technical Officer. During his 17 years in the Military he served in a variety of operational explosives ordnance disposal (EOD) and intelligence appointments and has seen active service in a number of high threat theatres including Iraq, Afghanistan, Colombia and Northern Ireland. During much of his career he specialised in tactical EOD operations and was the architect of the UK’s EOD response to a suicide bomb attack on the UK mainland. Later, he played an instrumental role during the July 2005 London bombings when he was seconded to COBR-A as a suicide terrorism subject matter expert.

He retired from the MOD in 2007 as the MOD’s senior worldwide IED intelligence analyst to become a counter-IED consultant and was awarded the Queens Gallantry Medal in 2005 for his actions in Iraq the previous year; he is the author of the best-selling memoirs Eight Lives Down and Extreme Risk and is a regular contributor to the BBC and other international news stations on IED related issues; he is also a Fellow of the Institute of Explosives Engineers, a former chairman of its technical committee and a Member of the International Association of Bomb Technicians and Investigators.

Abstract
Throughout history, and with varying results, terrorists have repeatedly resorted to the indiscriminate use of improvised explosive devices (IED’s) to advance their ideological or political goals. IED’s receive high media coverage, they are inexpensive, comparatively easy to produce and usually, are very difficult to counter. Because of their attractive risk/benefit ratio, they have become the terrorist’s preferred weapon of choice and are responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent victims every year.

In this edgy, fast-paced and often moving presentation, Chris Hunter describes how, as a bomb disposal operator in Northern Ireland and Iraq, he witnessed horrendous acts of terrorism and recounts the methods he personally had to employ to outsmart the terrorists who repeatedly tried to target him. Hunter’s talk takes us to some of the most perilous places on earth and describes how he and his team of intelligence officers relentlessly attempted to track down the world’s leading terrorists in an effort to disrupt their networks. A journey that takes us from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan to the murky back-streets of Colombia and Israel. Whether responding to the 2005 London suicide bombings or trying to foil Al Qaeda bomb plots, this presentation provides a fascinating, no-holds-barred insight into a fascinating world that has rarely been documented by somebody on the inside.