The terrorist attack in London
- By Heiko Khoo
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E-mail China.org.cn, March 24, 2017
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Acting Deputy Commissioner Mark Rowley (1st L) and other police officers pay a minute's silence tribute at Scotland Yard, headquarters of London's Metropolitan Police in London, Britain, on March 23, 2017. (Xinhua/Han Yan) |
Khalid Masood, a 52 year-old British born Muslim, carried out a terrorist attack in Westminster on March 22. It was the sort of attack that the security services have expected and prepared for. The attacker targeted civilians walking on Westminster Bridge. His weapon was a hired car. He drove at high speed along the packed pavement and ploughed into pedestrians on the crowded bridge that leads to Parliament, injuring 40 people and killing three: Kurt Cochran, Aysha Fradeon and an as yet unnamed 75 year old man. Then he crashed his car into the wall, jumped out of the vehicle, ran into the parliamentary compound, and stabbed and killed Keith Palmer - a police officer protecting parliament. Then armed police shot and killed the assailant.
That afternoon I was taking a school group on a walking tour in central London. They had been visiting Parliament only hours before. The students were calm. Indeed, Londoners as a whole carried on with their business, despite the attacks.
Although Masood was known to the police and intelligence services, he was not on their radar as an imminent threat. It is almost certain that he acted alone, or with only a tiny handful of others, and he was inspired by similar attacks over the last year in Belgium, France and Germany.
This was the biggest attack in London since the July 7, 2005 bombings, when British born terrorists attacked London's underground railway system and blew up a bus. That incident killed 56 people including the 4 attackers, and injured 700. The bombers were all British Muslims who attempted to justify their deeds by reference to British intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq.
There is a widespread sense of alienation among young Muslims from mainstream British society. And this is commonly cited as a breeding ground, which allows Islamic inspired terrorist networks to be formed and to carry out attacks. The primary cause of this alienation is political and historical - it is a reaction to British military interventions in Muslim lands.
However, socio-economic alienation, Islamaphobia, and racism, all act to exacerbate these grievances. As a consequence, at the fringes of Muslim communities in Britain's inner cities, it is possible to recruit individuals prepared to carry out such atrocities against civilians. This story is the same in Belgium and France, where youth from poor and socially excluded North African and Middle Eastern communities have produced clusters of terror cells, like those that carried out attacks over the last two years in Europe.
The formation of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq in recent years even inspired small groups of British school girls to conspire together and run away to Syria to join the Jihad.
Logistically, it is an impossible task to prevent all low-tech attacks such as that in Westminster. And it is indicative of the weakness of Islamic state support here, that such events are rare. However, one can never underestimate the potential for such attacks to foster more copycat attacks.
Modern technology provides the IS with the tools with which to groom and recruit new adherents remotely. And therefore it is very difficult to isolate the likely attackers. This means that to eradicate or minimize such forms of terrorism requires us to revisit two questions: 1. The international relations of power that produce this barbarity; 2. The social exclusion that generates a fertile recruiting ground.
The Syrian/Iraqi war and the crisis throughout North Africa and the Middle East are the main immediate causes. And these crises have spilled over into the European refugee crisis, and the nationalist reaction that is sweeping Europe. The same problems are, at least partly, behind the election of Donald Trump.
Keeping a sense of proportion is important. Any move to increase security in a way that further alienates Muslim communities in Europe is likely to exacerbate the situation. It would be better if the security response were more effectively coordinated. For example, the attack did not result in the automatic closure of the underground station in Westminster. The station was still bringing thousands of people into vicinity for some time after the attack. This indicates that collaboration and forethought to link the command of anti-terrorist response units with the control of the nearby transport infrastructure is absent. In fact, the station was only shutdown after an MP personally intervened to make sure it was closed.
In addition, St Thomas' Hospital is only a minute away from the scene of the carnage, but is not equipped or prepared for a large-scale incident. Clearly the hospitals closest to central London are precisely the ones that should be ready for such terrorist incidents. Indeed, the government-imposed austerity has brought Accident and Emergency departments all over the country to breaking point. This, and other grievances, caused junior doctors to organize a series of strikes over the recent period. In addition, cuts to police budgets have sharply reduced the presence of visible frontline police officers. Although the police are out in force in central London today, it has been admitted that the main purpose of this exercise is to reassure people. These cuts to public service budgets can only increase the death and injury toll in such attacks. These things can be put right.
Heiko Khoo is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:http://m.keyanhelp.cn/opinion/heikokhoo.htm
Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn
