Let’s stop being naive about the threat posed by Islamic State
Now that even Hongkongers have become victims in this terrible cycle of violence, basic trust and assumptions about humanity can no longer be taken for granted
Islamic State’s borderless reign of terror has got personal. While we are still reeling with the rest of the world from the inhuman horror of the slaughter by truck among a festive crowd in Nice, France, our thoughts have turned to four Hong Kong victims and their loved ones after an axe attack by an Afghan youth on a German train. The attack on a couple, their daughter and her boyfriend drove home the reality of Nice and other random attacks linked to Islamic State – there is no conventional defence against haphazard terror, or even those who are simply deranged. We must learn to live with the threat.
An Islamic State mouthpiece has claimed that the truck killer was an IS soldier answering calls to target nationals of the coalition that is fighting IS. The French police knew Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, 31, only as a petty criminal. Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Lahouaiej-Bouhlel had apparently undergone a “very rapid radicalisation” into someone capable of extreme violence.
This raises a number of concerns. Intelligence is key to fighting terrorism. Few if any democracies have the unfettered electronic snooping powers at the command of the French state. Yet the authorities could not prevent the atrocity in Nice.