Ref: terror in Nice
_____

Dear Emmanuel, Titus and Lusson families, Martine, Jöelle and friends,
Just a note of solidarity with you and with the french people after the
awful massacre in Nice.
Share the sense of shock, insanity and absurd mass murder of innocent
people.
It reminds me of "Les Justes" written by Albert Camus, a painful insight of
the "logic" of terror by any source, be it fundamentalist religious,
political sectarianism and/or state terror.
Herewith forward a note about this awful deed.
Abrazos
/Azril





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*Nice attack: how vulnerable are we to ‘low-tech terror’?*

*By Mark Briskey* - The Conversation / Newsweek*

France has again been the scene of a lethal terrorist attack. At least one
attacker drove through and then opened fire on crowds of French and foreign
citizens enjoying Bastille Day celebrations in Nice, killing at least 80
people and injuring scores more.

Though there is as yet little solid information on who conducted this
attack and whether any particular terrorist group can claim responsibility,
it has shown what dreadful impact can be caused by the use of an innocuous
and familiar part of modern life – a motor vehicle.

*A long history*

Though this attack included the use of firearms and hand grenades, it would
seem the great mass of casualties was caused by the deliberate driving of
the vehicle at high speed into clusters of people.

Though eventually shot dead, the attacker managed to exact a dreadful toll
primarily through use of a vehicle.

The use of vehicles to deliver catastrophic destruction has a long history.
Timothy McVeigh’s truck-borne bombing in April 1995 killed 168 people in
Oklahoma City in the US. And just a few weeks ago, a truck packed with
explosives killed more than 200 and injured hundreds more Iraqi people
innocently undertaking their Eid shopping in Baghdad.

All manner of transportation methods have been used as a means of
destruction. Vehicles from the motor car to trucks, motorbikes, bicycles
and before that even horse-drawn carriages have been used to conduct
terrorist attacks against governments and civilians alike in countries as
diverse as Sri Lanka and the United Kingdom.

*How can people be protected?*

What’s concerning about the Nice attack is that a low-technology pervasive
tool of modern society was used as the primary weapon with such dreadful
success.

If this attack has been inspired by Islamic State’s exhortations to attack
the West with whatever implement is at hand, there are new implications for
the security of social spaces.

In 2014, a radicalised individual deliberately drove over two Canadian
soldiers. One soldier died. So, do we now have to fear a new “low-tech
terrorism”?

We are already aware in modern societies of the risks of irresponsibly
driven vehicles. The accidental and deliberate use of vehicles to kill and
maim has also been a factor in trying to create secure spaces for
pedestrians in malls and kerbside dining venues. In 1983, Douglas Crabbe
deliberately drove his 20-tonne truck into a crowded bar in the Northern
Territory in Australia, killing five and seriously injuring 16.

In this regard we are all familiar with the installation of bollards and
other large immovable devices at the entrances to malls, government
buildings and even adjacent al-fresco dining places.

As is the case with any high-tech threats, what’s key is whether those
individuals who plot such activities have come to the notice of government
security and policing agencies. While such agencies can monitor the plots
of those extremists it has knowledge of, it is regrettably entirely
possible there are individuals whom the government is not aware of.

The motor vehicle is such an everyday part of our society. And it is
possible there are individuals who may be motivated to copy this attack.

Similarly, it is possible there could simply be other individuals who have
become thoroughly radicalised who now see this as a low-tech option to plot
in their home countries. The Nice attack will have consequences for how
those spaces where people enjoy recreation and events are planned.July 15,
2016

**Mark Briskey is senior lecturer in National Security and International
Relations at Curtin University.*


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