No Perfect Defense

The Cipher Brief: First Paris, then San Bernardino, then Brussels.  How widespread are Islamic State networks in Europe, and can we expect these kind of attacks to continue?

Quite clearly the recent history of attacks, certainly those in Paris and Brussels, shows a very substantial increase in threats linked more or less exclusively to the Islamic State (IS).  The threats are linked to IS’s control of resources and territory in Iraq and Syria and its clear, stated intention of developing an attack capability in Europe and the United States.  Almost inevitably, therefore, there will be groups developing attack capabilities that are varied, linked into central planning in Syria, and carried out by adherents and sympathizers in European capitals and the United States.  And these threats will be linked to the large scale movement of people, particularly around Europe. The Paris attacks showed that all of these factors applied.   What matters, then, is the real operational capability of each individual group, and knowing that is a matter of acquiring detailed information.  There’s been a marked increase, sadly, in the threat, and it has to be taken extremely seriously.