New face of terror difficult to unmask and counter

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Opinion

Three attacks on three separate continents on Friday show how changes in tactics by organisations like Islamic State can create even more threats to the civilised world.

They are calling it the new face of terror. Three attacks on three separate continents on Friday show how changes in tactics by organisations like Islamic State can create even more threats to the civilised world.

IS is claiming responsibility for two of them, a ghastly massacre of tourists on a beach in Tunisia and a devastating suicide bomb attack in a mosque in Kuwait. It is not clear if the third incident, the beheading of a man in France, is related to IS or the work of a lone madman.

The young gunman on the Tunisian beach killed 38 people and wounded another 36, including many British and other Western tourists. The suicide bomber, a young Saudi, killed 27 people and wounded 227 in a Shi’ite mosque in Kuwait.

What is alarming to security experts is that these sorts of attacks are extremely difficult to detect and prevent.

A lone youth with a Kalashnikov hidden in a beach umbrella who suddenly opens fire on all around him is something that will not show up on electronic surveillance. IS has the ability to recruit young people who have limited or no criminal records and no known terrorist link.

IS is fighting on three fronts; waging guerrilla warfare in Iraq and Syria while seeking to attack Westerners or Shi’ites and others it considers to be apostates in neighbouring countries, and reaching out on social media to disaffected Muslims in the West, inspiring them to attack targets in their home country.

It also continues to devise new atrocities in its so-called caliphate, such as drowning people in a cage or setting off explosives around their necks, after burning alive a Jordanian pilot and numerous beheadings — all filmed with high-end production values and transmitted online.

While there is no need to become paranoid, countries like New Zealand must constantly review their security. In that sense it is not encouraging that a group of Greenpeace protesters was able to scale scaffolding at Parliament last week. These people were harmless — somebody else might not be.