A so-called lone wolf terrorist ploughed into 40 people on Westminster Bridge in a vehicle, calling to mind previous such attacks in France. Four civilians were killed and seven were seriously injured. Immediately afterwards, the individual concerned got out of the vehicle, ran round to the Parliament's main entrance gate and stabbed a police officer, who died at the scene. The fact that the perpetrator was then shot and killed himself would have been of little comfort to the families and loved ones of those he murdered.
These attacks, when they erupt, shatter our illusion that we live in safe and secure societies. We do not. The eruption of terrorism in the Middle East has now spread across the world on the back of a twisted ideology that presumes to associate itself with the religion of Islam, but which in truth is the product of alienation and a reflex against modernity.
The irony that we have to grapple with in the wake of the attack in London is the fact that in the same week, the British government sent hundreds of British troops to Estonia as part of a NATO deployment with the objective of keeping Russia 'in check'. They were sent at a time when Russian soldiers and military personnel are in Syria fighting the same ideology responsible for killing those five people in London.
On this episode of Hard Facts, John is joined by terrorism expert Dr David Lowe to explore yet another terrorist attack to occur in a major European city, and to ask if enough is being doing to combat it?
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