Quiet terror

They don’t like to use the ‘Q’ word in counter-terrorism. It’s a bit like blurting out the name of the Scottish Play in a theatre. At Christmas parties, members of the security agencies insisted they had never been busier but once the year had turned and they were no longer tempting fate, they were prepared to admit that 2018 was a bit ‘quieter’. There were, for instance, far fewer arrests for ‘attack planning’, as opposed to downloading or sharing instructional and propaganda material. Last year, there were only four foiled attacks and one unsuccessful vehicle attack on Parliament. Right at the last gasp, with three hours to go to New Year, a knifeman in Manchester stabbed a couple and a police officer, but did not kill anyone.

2017 was a different story. There were attacks on Westminster in March, the Manchester Arena in May, London Bridge and Finsbury Park in June and Parsons Green in September, with a total of 36 deaths and more than 100 injured. Ten other plots were foiled: there was a Taleban bomb-maker carry-ing knives stopped yards from Downing Street; a mother and her two daughters were held after buying a knife and rehearsing an attack in the same area; and a man was arrested in an undercover sting with a fake suicide belt, planning to kill the Prime Minister.

Why was 2017 so violent? For one thing, there was a distinct copycat pattern. Khalid Masood, the ‘lone actor’ who carried out his attacks on Westminster Bridge and just outside the Houses of Parliament, inspired a whole series of others to follow his example. Three of the foiled plots took place in Westminster. In the London Bridge attack, led by Khuram Butt, the method used was identical. Salman Abedi, who launched the suicide bombing against children at Manchester Arena, appears to have inspired Ahmed Hassan to launch the bomb attack on Tube commuters at Parsons Green.