The repercussions have begun to roll. For example, the European Union has decided to step up checks on its citizens travelling abroad, tighten gun control and collect more data on airline passengers in response to the Paris attacks a week ago. There is nothing wrong with these security measures as jihadists are devising new ways to target innocent people and states have a sovereign duty to do everything to protect lives and avoid an attack on their soil, but the EU decision is just a tip of the elaborate and intrusively stiff security measures the world has been forced into and will witness more of. Air travel and life in general will become more difficult as the police and security agencies scramble to plug every security loophole. Millions will pay the price for a crime they haven’t committed, and the world’s Muslims are already busy with the much-rehearsed denunciation of terrorism and heart-felt cries that Islam has nothing to do with extremism and they should not be targeted.
The interior and justice ministers who met in Brussels following the Islamic State attacks that
killed 130 people in Paris also agreed to share more intelligence. They will also put in place new mechanisms to control bitcoin, cash and other ways of moving money around Europe outside the established banking systems. “We need to act firmly, we need to act swiftly and with force,” French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve summed up the mood of the leaders yesterday.
Even before the world has recovered from the shock of Paris attacks, terrorists descended on Mali yesterday. A nine-hour hostage situation at a five-star hotel in Mali’s capital resulted in the death of 27 people. Islamist militants with guns and grenades took about 170 people hostage at the hotel in Bamako in the morning, with the world watching with prayers and shock as the hostage drama unfolded. The Radisson attack follows a nearly 24-hour siege and hostage-taking at another hotel in August in the central Malian town of Sevare in which five UN workers were killed, along with four soldiers and four attackers.
After Paris and Mali, what next? The world is too huge a stage and fool-proof security is impossible to achieve. The terrorists have to succeed only once to wreak havoc and kill people, while security agencies have to succeed all the time in their job. All this makes the fight against terrorism more complicated and complex. The technology and talent available for terrorists due to the huge financial resources at their disposal makes every attack they plan a ‘possibility’. Nobody knows how to get out of this spiral of mayhem and massacre. But enhanced security and elimination of terrorists are the best available options•
The repercussions have begun to roll. For example, the European Union has decided to step up checks on its citizens travelling abroad, tighten gun control and collect more data on airline passengers in response to the Paris attacks a week ago. There is nothing wrong with these security measures as jihadists are devising new ways to target innocent people and states have a sovereign duty to do everything to protect lives and avoid an attack on their soil, but the EU decision is just a tip of the elaborate and intrusively stiff security measures the world has been forced into and will witness more of. Air travel and life in general will become more difficult as the police and security agencies scramble to plug every security loophole. Millions will pay the price for a crime they haven’t committed, and the world’s Muslims are already busy with the much-rehearsed denunciation of terrorism and heart-felt cries that Islam has nothing to do with extremism and they should not be targeted.
The interior and justice ministers who met in Brussels following the Islamic State attacks that
killed 130 people in Paris also agreed to share more intelligence. They will also put in place new mechanisms to control bitcoin, cash and other ways of moving money around Europe outside the established banking systems. “We need to act firmly, we need to act swiftly and with force,” French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve summed up the mood of the leaders yesterday.
Even before the world has recovered from the shock of Paris attacks, terrorists descended on Mali yesterday. A nine-hour hostage situation at a five-star hotel in Mali’s capital resulted in the death of 27 people. Islamist militants with guns and grenades took about 170 people hostage at the hotel in Bamako in the morning, with the world watching with prayers and shock as the hostage drama unfolded. The Radisson attack follows a nearly 24-hour siege and hostage-taking at another hotel in August in the central Malian town of Sevare in which five UN workers were killed, along with four soldiers and four attackers.
After Paris and Mali, what next? The world is too huge a stage and fool-proof security is impossible to achieve. The terrorists have to succeed only once to wreak havoc and kill people, while security agencies have to succeed all the time in their job. All this makes the fight against terrorism more complicated and complex. The technology and talent available for terrorists due to the huge financial resources at their disposal makes every attack they plan a ‘possibility’. Nobody knows how to get out of this spiral of mayhem and massacre. But enhanced security and elimination of terrorists are the best available options•
