Fighting the Invisible

With the recent attacks raining over UK, the intelligence agencies and the police are largely underway to many investigations. Following the London Bridge Attack on Saturday, many people have now criticized the London Police and Intelligence as a result of the constant attacks, also having known that such attackers were initially ‘flagged’.

Background

Khuram Butt, for instance was known to the police, he had been on the radar of the British security since 2015. The 27-year old was a member of the banned UK Salafi Jihadi organization ‘al-Muhajiroun’.

Khuram Butt’s profile does initiate certain amount of suspicion as he would try to ‘radicalize’ children and people at parks. He was also banned from East London and mosques as he would call Muslims who didn’t keep beards ‘Kafir’ meaning non-believer. Youssef Zaghba, 22-year old Moroccan- Italian man was stopped at the Italian airport, Bologna in 2016 on his way to Syria, as ISIS related material was known to have been found which resulted him to be put under the ‘EU wide-database watch’.

Rachid Redouane, a Moroccan-Libyan married a British woman in 2012 and was granted a European Union Residence in Ireland.

An Election Tease?

While UKIP, pro-Brexit’s leader focuses mainly on pushing for traditional policies like lowering taxes for low earners, Theresa May releases a statement saying she will change ‘Human Rights’ if they get in the way of combating terrorism. The British Prime Minister said that longer prison terms would be introduced, alongside easier ways for ‘deporting’ foreign terrorist suspects.

As party to the convention, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that people cannot be deported to a country if they are to face torture or execution there. This makes it challenging for the UK to deal with terrorists’ suspects, which Conservative leader, Theresa May has capitalized upon.

With the parliamentary election being only a day away, the general election polls are showing a neck to neck battle between parties. The ruling Conservative Party and the opposition Labour Party has tried to defend their names in the ‘wake of security’. Theresa May, as Interior Minister from 2010 to 2016 had ordered a cut on the police officers in England and Wales, with as many as 20,000 men being cut down from the security forces. Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party had strongly criticized the decision. However, the Labour Party leader had also faced criticisms in the past on his vote against counter-terrorism measures.  

A Blindsided Battle?

There is an obvious need to amp up the security forces and measures in UK with or without the election taking place just around the corner. It is however evident, judging from the series of terror attacks in London and elsewhere in the world, that the security forces have only been able to deal with terrorism during and after it takes place but ‘preventing’ it has always been a larger battle, one that is mostly unsuccessful.

The intelligence has often underscored various suspects of terrorism as the limitations of tools and technology fail to draw a definite roadmap to the attacks which to a certain degree, is understandable but nevertheless ‘daunting’. It reminds us that the terrorists’ will always have an advantage over us for as long as we tackle them, blindly.