Another spate of random murders in Britain, less than two weeks since the bomb in Manchester, underlines the scale of the challenge faced by police in Europe at present. It is hard to think of an easier crime to commit, or a more callous one, than to drive a motor vehicle into city pedestrians. The bollards that have appeared at entrances to pedestrian precincts in cities around the world are testimony to the extent of this threat. But it is impossible to protect pedestrians everywhere.
The slayings on London Bridge and nearby area yesterday come just two months after four people were killed in similar ways, with a car and a knife, at Westminster.
In the wake of the Manchester bombing, the threat level in Britain was raised to critical, and as the public learned the Manchester killer had previously been a suspect under watch, British counter-terrorism officials made known the scale of the task facing them. They said they have 500 operations under way monitoring 3000 potential suspects. Since all of these people are watched around the clock, the demand on the resources of the Metropolitan Police must be immense.
The fact the 3000 under surveillance did not include the Manchester suicide bomber, Salman Abedi, speaks volumes for the threat they present. Abedi was known to have recently been in Libya and perhaps Syria. His family, friends and others who knew him had contacted the authorities with their concerns about him at least five times before he blew himself up at a Manchester pop concert, killing 22 people.
Everyone is wise in hindsight after these incidents, but if a young man with Abedi's known jihadist sympathies and travel pattern did not rank high enough on the risk assessment of British counter-terrorism operations to warrant their constant surveillance, it means the 3000 given priority must be considered even more dangerous. Presumably they did not include the killers in London yesterday.
