Terrorism

Since December, when Islamic terrorist Anis Amri drove a truck into a Berlin Christmas market, Germans have been waiting fearfully for the next Islamist attack. However right-wing terrorism is also a growing concern in Germany, and the latest case to come to light shows how this extremist movement may be evolving. Germany's Military Intelligence is currently investigating 275 cases of right-wing extremism, but surely none of them is quite so disconcerting as the peculiar case of Franco A. The investigation began in January, when a maintenance worker at Vienna Airport opened a toilet ventilation duct and found a pistol hidden inside it. The police attached an alarm to the air duct, in February a man set off the alarm, and was duly arrested.

A man in his late twenties has been arrested on Whitehall today and is being detained under the terrorism act. The BBC are reporting that the man was known to the police. Photos from the scene appear to show a knife on the ground. The police are saying that following this arrest there is no immediate known threat. There doesn’t seem to be any particular concern inside the Palace of Westminster; everything here seems pretty calm right now. But, obviously, following the appalling murder of PC Palmer and four others just over a month ago there is a heightened sense of the risk of a low-tech terrorist attack. It is important, though, that life continues as normally as possible. After all, one of the aims of terrorism is to disrupt our way of life.

Last Friday, only hours after the terrorist attack in central Stockholm, police found themselves pelted by rocks in the city’s largely immigrant Tensta neighbourhood. The following evening, officers were once again attacked, this time in Hammarkullen in Gothenburg. On Sunday, a familiar story: rioters aimed Molotov cocktails and a fire bomb at police as unrest broke out in the area. In the days following the truck attack, Swedish newspapers had been full of defiant headlines: ‘Stockholm stands united’ and ‘Love conquers all.’ But the subsequent violence put paid to much of that: ‘Unity’ and ‘love’ are, for many Swedes, not the words that spring instantly to mind.

In response to the Westminster attack, a 100-strong new counter-extremism taskforce has been announced to deal with the terrorist threat in prisons. I’m taking some credit for this badly needed focus. In the autumn of 2015, the then Justice Secretary, Michael Gove, asked me to lead an independent review of the threat posed by Islamist extremism in prisons, the probation service and the youth justice system. I used to be a prison governor in what was known until just a few days ago as the National Offender Management Service, so I agreed on the understanding that I reported only to him and that I had his full support to go where the evidence led me, without interference from bureaucrats. To his credit, he agreed immediately. Gathering information was a complex task for a small team.

Moscow Russia’s REN TV, which published the first image of a person who planted a bomb on a train in St Petersburg’s metro, reported that the security services are not ruling out the possibility that his clothes and beard may have been a disguise used to fool the authorities. But since racial profiling is practised as a matter of course in Russia, it would seem peculiar for a would-be terrorist to dress up in an Islamic disguise, especially considering that there are even more police than usual out on the streets and in the metros of major Russian cities after the recent anti-corruption protests.

Last week’s events in London raised a recurrent dilemma for journalists, including me. It is a huge story when a terrorist kills four people then is shot down in Palace Yard, Westminster. Yet dare we say how fortunate we are that since 9/11 Muslim terrorists have proved incapable of mounting an attack remotely as lethal as that on the Twin Towers? An intelligence officer told me recently that he worries far more about Russia than about Muslim suicidalists, and this must be the rational assessment. The public needs awakening to the menace posed by Vladimir Putin’s adventurism. Meanwhile, Khalid Masood’s dreadful deed reflects the flailings of a death cult.

Since last week’s attack in Westminster, various readers have asked whether my list of ‘standard responses to terrorism’ has held true in the aftermath of this attack as in the aftermath of so many attacks before. And since it appears that good news must now immediately be seized from any tragedy – even within minutes of that tragedy occurring – in keeping with the times, I am happy to report that my list does indeed hold true. I had already noted last week that we were swiftly into the realm of hashtaggery with ‘Pray for London’ trending. I must say that I’m never sure how many of the people urging people to do this actually pray themselves, or think prayer works, or what it might achieve.