The attack occurred exactly on the same streets in Central Stockholm, where a suicide bomber blew himself up in 2010. And, by the way, not so far from the place where in 1986 was murdered Prime Minister of Sweden Olof Palme.
Then, almost seven years ago, a militant Islamist is not taken with him to the grave no one else. Some certainly thought on a simple misunderstanding.
Why to strike at the humanitarian superpower, which is more than anyone else in the world has done for refugees around the world and which is not involved in military conflicts in other parts of the world? If anything, the Denmark, the “birthplace” of cartoons of the prophet Mohammed, would have to stand much higher on the list of priorities.
But on Friday, the Stockholm clearly joined the European cities, stricken to the heart with simple and primitive means which, however, possess tremendous punching power and ability to rivet the attention of the population and the media. First was nice, then in Berlin, and the most recent was London, where killing machines on four wheels was enough to change history.
“We do not know whether it is an isolated case, or can prepare something more”, — said at a press conference yesterday, the head of the Swedish police.
A few hours earlier, a truck with beer ads drove into a crowd on the street Drottninggatan at square Sergels of Toll in Central Stockholm, and then crashed into the facade of the Department store Åhlens.
Now, when writing this article, we know of at least four dead and about 15 wounded immediately after the attack was chaotic: people were frightened and were in the air questions, not receiving answers: It really terrorism or just an accident? Was the offender alone or behind more people?
At a meeting with journalists representatives of the police and intelligence services said that they are searching for a man in a green army jacket and a black hooded sweatshirt, and that the attack was not a surprise. In fact, the authorities were preparing for a “similar scenario” and therefore they had a “good starting point”.
The mere threat
But now, when tragedy has already occurred, it should be said that in all European security services employees are not left with no choice but to make the same sad confession:
You can have as many technical equipment, sources within extremist circles, the armed police and concrete barriers on pedestrian streets and still be to face with the enemy, which is just enough to get into a stolen truck and crashing into a crowd of people.
Will never be able to prevent some more or less free to people with encrypted means of communication to strike. And this is true even for those countries where the dictatorship.
In the old days, almost 15 years ago, was a network of al-Qaeda (a terrorist organization banned in Russia — approx.ed.) which intelligence service indefinitely could listen to, whose location they could identify and expose, while the it was not raised on Board or went down into the subway with the explosives. Today, terrorists with easy funds can achieve almost the same effect as September 11, which killed about 3 thousand people.
The myth of the lone wolf
Four dead, the population is in mourning and shock, and exceptional attention day and night on countless media platforms can have for the state of the landmark political significance.
As an employee of the intelligence Service of the police back in 2008 a colleague in this newspaper, the security waited a long time for the terrorists will figure out how really easy to implement attack:
“They realize that they don’t need to get a pilot’s license or to produce some sophisticated bombs. Simply log in to the bus with the children’s toy gun to hijack a bus and send it to strøget (pedestrian street in Central Copenhagen, approx.ed.). Police still do not have time to do, and he’s already passing a lot of people,” he said.
From the field the terrorist attacks in nice us, those who stood under the scorching sun on the promenade des Anglais and thought about how someone could come up with the idea to send a truck to women and children, young and old in the national day of France, there were many. Surely, it was just some sick people, only he could have killed 86 innocent people.
But as repeatedly stressed by leading Norwegian expert on terror Nesser Petter (Petter Nesser) of the research Institute of the Norwegian Armed forces, should be very cautious, calling criminals deranged “lone wolf”.
He analyzed all of the attacks in Europe that were made after 1990-ies, and research has shown that lone wolves almost non-existent, except for his own compatriot, mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik.
Time after time it turns out that for criminals there is a whole network of “contractors” in the head, which has contacts with radical mosques and conflict zones, including in Syria, where foreign mercenaries will be a huge concern when I’m back in Europe.
In the coming days the investigation should show how it is applicable to the case of terrorist attack using a truck in Stockholm. Police have already detained in the North of the capital, suspect.
