US terrorist detection technique BOSAR trialled in Queensland

A US technique for spotting terrorists has been secretly trialled at major public events in Queensland, including Riverfire, the Commonwealth Games and Horn-Pacquiao fight.

QUEENSLAND’S counter-terrorism measures have become the strongest in the nation, through the introduction of a secret US training regime given exclusively to our cops.

Behavioural observation and suspicious activity recognition — or BOSAR — has seen police on the frontline given to skills to identify terror threats sooner than ever before.

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The capability was used successfully during Brisbane’s recent Riverfire spectacular, and is expected to keep Queenslanders safe at all major public events going forward.

Counter-terrorism superintendent Graham Coleman has spoken publicly about the measure for the first time, telling The Sunday Mail it has seen the Queensland Police Service return to old-school tactics.

“It’s really about identifying the crowded place you’re trying to protect, and then using the capability to ensure that if there’s any obvious behaviour that is a threat to the crowd, we can intervene in that behaviour prior to anything happening,” he said.

BOSAR was invented by the New York Police Department following the September 11 terrorist attacks.

The new terror technique was used to protect crowds at Brisbane’s recent Riverfire. Picture: Steve Pohlner/AAP

Following the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, the capability was passed on to Massachusetts State Police, who perfected it.

After reviewing footage of the culprits — Kyrgyz-American brothers Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev — taken prior to the attack, they noticed their behaviour was similar to that of other suicide attackers.

Supt Coleman told a West Australian parliamentary inquiry in August: “We did not want an adversary at our doorstep.

“If there was going to be an adversary, we wanted to pick them up further away.”

Supt Coleman was invited to Boston to learn from their state police, and in late 2016, members of the Massachusetts State Police travelled to Brisbane to teach members of QPS.

Since then, more than 400 officers in Queensland have received the training, including members of the mounted police and railway unit, who are often the first line of defence when major incidents at public events occur.

Queensland Police Service counter-terrorism superintendent Graham Coleman

BOSAR was trialled at State of Origin in Brisbane last year, and again at the Jeff Horn-Manny Pacquiao fight at Suncorp Stadium last December.

Supt Coleman said the first major test came at the Commonwealth Games, but no major threats were identified.

The next step will be to share BOSAR with other Australian police forces.

“We’ve just been given permission only this year to share the capability to other jurisdictions,” he said.

“We’ve not been given subsequent authority to share with other jurisdictions in Australia, and we’ll be doing that in the future.”

Training of other police forces in Australia is likely to take place late this year, or sometime next year.

In the meantime, Brisbane mounted police, railway officers and other uniformed cops will be using the capability as needed.