Quick Take | London Bridge terror: What Britain has to learn from Turkey
To combat ‘lone wolf’ terrorist attacks, societies must first undermine the networks from which they gain inspiration
The increasing frequency of suicide attacks in Europe and Asia – as seen most recently in London – suggests a clear degree of failure on behalf of law enforcement agencies to detect and decapitate terrorist networks.
It is true that not all attacks are directly the work of terrorist networks – the three men who drove a vehicle into pedestrians on London Bridge before going on a knife rampage at the weekend are understood to have been acting as so-called ‘lone wolves’, for instance.
Yet even in such cases, lone wolves draw their inspiration and methods from wider networks that take the lead in articulating their ideological causes.
The experience of Turkey shows that the problem is not without solution, however. Turkey has struggled recently with terror attacks – the country saw more than 500 terror-related casualties between early 2015 and mid 2016 – yet it appears now to have got a hold on the problem.
One must remember that Turkey is surrounded by regions struggling with terrorism. Yet Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir – three of the country’s biggest cites – have remained largely terror-free since the turn of the year when a gunman killed 39 people in the Reina Nightclub in Istanbul.
