A Notable Reminder

It seems only right that I mark the start of this security blog, with the key story on the day of its launch; The guilty plea of Mohammed Chowdhury, Shah Rahman, Gurukanth Desai and Abdul Miah, 4 men who have admitted to planning to detonate a bomb at the London Stock Exchange. The men arrested in December 2010, pleaded guilty to engaging in conduct in preparation for acts of terrorism serve as reminder that terrorism on UK soil is still a very real threat.

The men, all British nationals, admitted planning to detonate a bomb at the London Stock Exchange, as part of a wider group of 9 which was plotting other attacks including letter bombs and pub bombings.

Whilst the trial and sentencing will be a matter for the news and public opinion, the more pressing questions lie within the ongoing debate over home-grown terrorism.

This case bears all the hallmarks that both students of terrorism and lovers of security based dramas are all familiar with; secluded meetings, contact over the internet, radical inspiration, logistical planning, sketches, target lists, terrorism literature and target observation. Similarly the plot being uncovered has a certain familiarity to it, MI5 surveillance, and a counter terrorism police operation. Could it be suggested that normality, a strange routine has begun to emerge in these cases?

To the security providers themselves the answer would be a resounding no, yet the layman could dismiss this as another case of radicalised fantasists who have had their comeuppance. Yet as the BBC’s Matt Prodger points out, it could have been very different there is a fine line between fantasy and realism, they could have remained undetected, they could have carried out these attacks.

The many questions, which sadly cannot be answered here, now stem from a decade of living under this threat of terrorism (and many more decades of other sources of terror). Are we safe? What threats are out there?  When will this happen again?

Yet there are more hidden questions that have a more abstract thought process, Will there ever be a successful attack, are these terrorists any good? Or have we grown more resilient, are we less disturbed by these revelations? For example think back to the amount of news time this would have gained in the post 9/11 years (admittedly this view plays to one of my key thesis that our understanding of terrorism is shaped very much by the media).

Undoubtedly there would be ways for this view to change; the most shocking would be a destructive attack itself, something which all conscious people must secretly fear in 2012, a year in which so much attention is being drawn on London and Britain. A simpler catalyst would be a plot uncovered which didn’t play to these ‘norms’, something wholly different yet equally as chilling.

I do not suggest there is complacency, certainly not in the security providers who have stepped up their role in line with the pressures of 2012.  Perhaps then in a period dominated with questions of reaching out to disenfranchised and disinterested groups with in society, the question that has always been present but never been answered over the last 10 years should once again be considered; why do these ideas of hatred, and violence grow within our country. Perhaps today, along with anniversaries of both failed and successful terrorist efforts and visual demonstrations of anti-British sentiment should be a reminder that there is still much to do on a societal level in the provision of security for the UK.