London soldier murder raises fears of “lone wolf” attacks

[1]

Image Thumbnail:

The brutal murder of a British soldier in northwest region of London has the hallmarks of a militant Islamist attack but one conducted by “lone wolf” operators, a security nightmare, experts said on Thursday.

Counter-terror police are investigating Wednesday’s attack in which two men hacked the soldier to death in broad daylight. They were shot and wounded by police and are now in hospitals under armed guard.

The gruesome nature of the murder, some witnesses say the men tried to decapitate their victim, their politically-fuelled rants to passers-by, and their apparent desire for publicity all point to militant Islamist extremism, experts say.

But the small scale of the attack, far removed from the massive destruction of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States and the coordinated suicide bombings in London in 2005 fit with fears that lone operators are now a serious threat.

“The problem with amateurs is they just do something - and that’s what makes them dangerous,” John Gearson, professor of national security services at King’s College London, told AFP.

“This is a departure from the established type of attacks that you see or the established plan that you see of terrorism causing mass murder,” explained John O’Connor, a former head of the Scotland Yard police headquarters’ ‘Flying Squad’ detective unit.

“The bottom line is that it could spring up anywhere and that’s the concern. It’s very difficult to keep a tab on where this is going and where the threat level is,” O’Connor told the BBC.

Security experts have long been warning of the risk of terror attacks from individuals who slip under the surveillance radar.

Last year Jonathan Evans, the head of British spy agency MI5, warned about the threat from “lone actors” who were hard to identify because they used everyday weapons, often did not belong to any group and did not attend terror training camps abroad.