Terrorist attacks using vehicles such as in Barcelona are ‘becoming a new reality for Europeans’ according to experts.
Nathalie Goulet, a French senator said: ‘Someone who gets in their car and crashes into a crowd, unfortunately we need to learn to live with that and every citizen must remain vigilant.’
The latest attacks in Barcelona and the seaside resort of Cambrils on Thursday has left at least 14 dead and 100 injured.
The van that ploughed into the crowd on Las Ramblas in Barcelona is towed away
Forensics investigators work at the scene after an attack on Westminster Bridge
Goulet, the French senator, sits on a parliamentary panel tasked with analysing jihadist groups.
She says that one of IS’s goals is turning the western world against Muslim minorities in their countries and using anti-Muslim rhetoric is playing into their hands.
Goulet suggests: ‘You need to look at the reality. Telling people that banning Muslims…or closing mosques will resolve the problem is lying.’
Paris, Berlin, Nice, London and Stockholm have already seen extremists drive vehicles into crowds.
Experts say that these such attacks are now a new reality for Europeans.
Following the Westminster attack, a security barrier on several bridges has been installed
Pedestrians walk through newly installed barriers on the pavement at London Bridge
Frederic Gallois, the former head of France’s elite GIGN police force told AFP: ‘Any gathering of people is a soft target and there are crowds everywhere.’
Following the terror attacks in London, police have ramped up security with extra protection for pedestrians on bridges in the capital.
While following the Manchester attacks, more armed police were put on patrol at events such as Wimbledon, Ascot and international football and rugby matches at Wembley and Twickenham.
Police officers and rescue workers stand near a van that ploughed into a crowd leaving a fireworks display in the French Riviera town of Nice on July 14
Emergency servies work at the scene where a truck crashed into the Ahlens department store at Drottninggatan in central Stockholm
However Gallois says citizens’ safety cannot be guaranteed 100 percent. Even if security services managed to protect symbolic sites and the most popular areas around cities, nearby streets or neighbourhoods would still be vulnerable, he says.
Both IS and Al-Qaeda have urged their followers to use whatever means at their disposal, including vehicles, as part of a strategy of ‘death by a thousand cuts’ aimed at destroying the west.
The Radicalization Awareness Network, an EU research body, warned last month that 1,200-3,000 jihadists risked returning to Europe after fighting in Iraq and Syria – out of an estimated 5,000 who joined the terror groups there.