Recent geopolitical events will ‘open up more space for IS to resurge’ says counter terrorism expert

We spoke to Colin Clarke, a counter-terrorism expert and director of research at security consulting firm The Soufan Group. We asked him how sophisticated this attack was and whether it could have been prevented.

Colin Clarke: Fairly sophisticated in the sense that there was multiple redundancies built in. The attacker obviously used a vehicle to ram through people and kill them, but he also had a firearm and he also had improvised explosive devices. So multiple kind of fallbacks to increase lethality, to increase carnage. In terms of could this attack have been prevented, it’s now been well documented that some of the steel bollards that should have been in the area were not because they were being repaired. But it’s really impossible to harden every single soft target that we have for large gatherings. If someone’s determined to run people over, they’re likely going to succeed.

Cathy Newman: It bears some similarities in that respect with the attack on the Christmas market in Germany. Does there need to be further investigation about this kind of lone actor terrorism using the vehicle as a weapon?

Colin Clarke: I don’t know what further investigation there could be. This is a tried and true method that the Islamic State has relied on for many, many years. We can go back to Nice in France on Bastille Day, the Berlin Christmas market attack, attacks with vehicles in Stockholm, in New York City, in Barcelona, in London. So again, this is a low tech, opportunistic type attack. We can’t simply harden every soft target there is. You know, we have to look at this comprehensively and also focus on the ideology and the radicalisation process.

Cathy Newman: You mentioned that it was an Islamic State sort of tactic and he was inspired by IS, the FBI says, not as far as we know, directed by them. But do you fear that IS is undergoing something of a renaissance?

Colin Clarke: I do, and I’ve been writing and speaking about this to anyone that will listen. You know, in the counterterrorism community, we understand that the Islamic State has never actually gone away. And so the threat kind of remains steady state. It ebbs and flows over time. But I think given recent geopolitical events, particularly the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, that’s going to open up more space for IS to resurge. And they’re likely going to use this attack, as well as what we saw in Somalia just recently, and other attacks around the world, to seize the momentum and to push its followers and supporters to conduct even more attacks in its name.

Cathy Newman: And Donald Trump lambasted law enforcement after this attack. How do you think he’ll deal with the kind of terrorist threat that you’ve just outlined?

Colin Clarke: Once he’s actually in office, he’s going to have to stick to data and evidence, not just making things up and posting them on social media. And I think he’s going to have to rely on, you know, his advisers, his counterterrorism specialists. To be fair to Trump, when he was president, he did a pretty good job in taking the fight to ISIS overseas and kind of putting that campaign together. But now this is a different situation, talking about home-grown, violent extremism, radicalisation. Again, you know, putting things on Truth Social or tweeting them out is completely different than actually putting together a coherent counterterrorism strategy.

Cathy Newman: And briefly, do you think the timing is significant with a kind of political vacuum in the US before Trump returns to the White House?

Colin Clarke: Yeah, I do. I think, you know, Biden is one of the lamest lame ducks we’ve had in office for quite some time. So I’m not really concerned about domestically what could happen in the United States, but I’m concerned about what may happen abroad in the Middle East and elsewhere as our adversaries try to take advantage of that power vacuum.