Terrorism

At my nearest library recently there was an art exhibition featuring the works of local school children on the subject of ‘unity’, with lots of drawings (many of them outstandingly good) emphasising how we’re all the same (and yet diverse) and that what we have in common is far more important than anything that divides us. We are totally, totally united. Because I’m a terrible person, there was once a time when this sort of thing would have caused me to break out in an involuntary sneer – except that this was just after the Manchester bombing and one of the schools involved was my kids’, and it just made

As if the issue of Catalonian secession wasn’t fraught enough, some of its most committed advocates are now arguing that the terrorist attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils last week demonstrate the region’s readiness for independence. Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy, for his part, has suggested that the vehicle attacks that left 15 dead require regional differences to be cast aside in the battle against jihadism. The debate about Catalonian independence has always been a heated, complex one in Spain. Now that the tragic events of last week are being introduced into the discussion, it will become even more so. Some of the more fervent supporters of Catalonian secession have been particularly active on social media

Spain, Finland, Russia: in the space of a few days, Europe is reminded, yet again, that terrorism – like the virus it is – kills brutally, indiscriminately and, critically, transnationally. On Thursday, August 17, a van rammed into crowds of people in Barcelona’s Las Ramblas boulevard – a hub of tourism and social life. Thirteen were killed with dozens more injured. The atrocity was followed by a knife attack the very next day in the Finnish city of Turku, which killed two people and injured eight. Another knife attack, this time in the Siberian city of Surgut on the 19 August, injured eight. Islamic State has claimed responsibly for all the

14 people have been killed and more than 100 injured after a van ploughed into pedestrians on Las Ramblas in a suspected jihadist attack Five suspected terrorists were shot dead by police in Cambrils, a coastal resort near to Barcelona, after a second vehicle attack was foiled It is believed the incident in Cambrils – in which six pedestrians and a police officer were injured – is linked to the earlier attack Isis has claimed responsibility for the Barcelona atrocity. Spain’s PM has referred to it as a ‘jihadist attack’ Four people have been arrested in connection with the attack on Las Ramblas. A major manhunt is underway for the driver

Islamic State will be delighted by what happened outside Finsbury Park mosque in the early hours of Monday morning. In the space of three months they’ve achieved in Britain what they failed to pull off in France during five years, and provoked a retaliatory act. This is what they want. When the Syrian intellectual, Abu Moussab al-Souri, published his 1600-page manifesto in 2005, ‘The Global Islamic Resistance Call’, his stated goal was to plunge Europe into a war of religion. Describing the continent as the soft underbelly of the West, al-Souri’s first target was France, the country he considered the most susceptible to fracturing along religious lines because it has