What can security forces do to prevent one man from ploughing through a crowd with a trailer truck? Apart for killing him, there is nothing the police can do. It might sound defeatist, but that is the sad truth. What happened in Nice, France on Bastille Day was devastating for the French and everyone who believes in peaceful coexistence. The death of 84 people under the rampaging wheels of a trailer truck is, without doubt,
an act of terror. It does not fit into the usual pattern. No bombs were used and neither were guns, but it was just as ruthless. The disturbing part is that it can happen again because the motor vehicle is perhaps, the most dangerous inventions of mankind.
Is the act of terror linked to radical Islam? The fact that the
perpetrator was a Muslim and that he committed an act so bizarre
and incomprehensible points to radical Islam. Lahouaiej
Bouhlel was a 31-year-old French-Tunisian delivery driver who
turned his truck into a weapon of mass destruction.
And it happened minutes after
fighter jets of the French air force
gave an aerial display of firepower
and awe. Nothing can be more ironical.
To have a powerful army, navy
and air force and yet seem helpless.
Since the driver was shot dead anyone
can claim responsibility. Unless
intelligence agencies come up
with call or text data to join the dots
it would be safe to assume that the ‘terrorist’ acted alone, which
makes it even more scary for France which has inherited a large
Muslim population from its colonial past.
But a pattern seems to be emerging. A commission set up by
French Parliament pointed out that inadequate policing was
one of the key reasons why the country is facing so many terrorist
attacks. All the French citizens who participated in terror
attacks in 2015 were known to the intelligence services. They
had all been watched and listened to at one point or another.
French security services had watched the Kouachi brothers who
massacred the staff of Charlie Hebdo. One of the Paris attackers,
Samy Amimour, had travelled to Syria and was placed under
surveillance, but nothing was done when he missed several
weekly checks. Another attacker was identified by Turkish intelligence
as a dangerous radical, but he was not watched either.
It would seem that France’s intelligence agencies are woefully
inept or severely understaffed. On the flip side, the authorities
are credited with halting nine terror attempts, but the ones that
got through seem to obliterate this good work.
One of the biggest problems faced by France is that the Muslim
community is not integrated into the mainstream. There is a
sense of alienation and discrimination over decades making the
youth vulnerable to radicalization. Over 60% of all prisoners are
Muslims compared with 8% of the total population. The present
situation is years in the making and will take years to reverse,
but until then it’s the job of the police and government to try and
contain the damage that a few disenchanted men can unleash.
For France, the danger lies within and the solutions will have
to come from within. If there is one lesson that India learnt
from the riots that followed the destruction of the Babri mosque
it was the formation of mohalla committees to integrate both
communities. The result: the Godhra riots did not spread to the
rest of the country but remained confined to Gujarat. There is
something that France can learn from India because banning
trucks is as impossible as banning guns in the US.
