The lessons learned from the Tokyo subway sarin gas terrorist attack by Aum Shinrikyo on 20 March 1995
This chapter deals with Aum Shinrikyo’s sarin gas terrorist attack on the subway in Tokyo, Japan, in March 1995. In particular, it will discuss the lessons learned from the incident, mainly from the perspective of police intelligence. The first part provides an overview of the sarin gas terrorist at...
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| Format: | Print Article |
| Language: | English |
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2025
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| In: |
Routledge international handbook of policing crises and emergencies
Year: 2025, Pages: 402-413 |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Summary: | This chapter deals with Aum Shinrikyo’s sarin gas terrorist attack on the subway in Tokyo, Japan, in March 1995. In particular, it will discuss the lessons learned from the incident, mainly from the perspective of police intelligence. The first part provides an overview of the sarin gas terrorist attack incident. Also, this part will explain the historical background of the Aum Shinrikyo terrorist organisation as a broad picture. In addition, the final section of this part will present a variety of previous research on the causes of Aum Shinrikyo’s development to the point where it is capable of carrying out such a large-scale terrorist attack. The second part will analyse the causes of the failure of the Japanese police to prevent the sarin gas terrorist attack, mainly from the perspective of intelligence theory. For the time being, it can be concluded that before the terrorist attacks, the highest levels of the police did not provide a clear intelligence requirement to the intelligence department. In other words, it appears that the lack of proper intelligence requirements led to the lack of adequate intelligence. As a consequence, the top police executives were not able to make appropriate preventive policy decisions. The third part will describe the reorganisation implemented by the Japanese intelligence community based on the lessons learned after the subway sarin gas terrorist attack. For example, the creation of the National Security Council and the strengthening of the Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office ensured that the policy sector gave formal requirements to the intelligence community. The final concluding section will summarise lessons learned based on the preceding discussion. When the problem of so-called ‘intelligence failure’ arises, governments often tend to strengthen their intelligence-gathering and analysis capabilities. However, the lessons learned from the sarin gas terrorist attack in Japan show a different story. In that incident, the leading cause of the Japanese police’s intelligence failure was not a lack of intelligence collection or analysis capabilities. Instead, the police failed to provide proper requirements to its intelligence department. Fortunately, after correcting these systemic problems, there have been no terrorist incidents in Japan on the same level as the sarin gas terror attack on the subway. These historical facts may provide supporting evidence for the validity of the conclusions of this chapter. |
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| Item Description: | Literaturverzeichnis: Seite 412-413 |
| ISBN: | 9781032207872 |
