T&T born UK-based terrorism expert Candyce Kelshall has warned that last Friday’s deadly Paris attack is the new blueprint for future terrorist attacks.
The death toll stood at well over 100 from the attacks on seven Paris locations—cafes, a stadium and a concert hall. Some more than 300 were estimated to be injured.
Speaking to the Sunday Guardian yesterday, Kelshall said: “The terrorist cell was able to operate below the radar and demonstrated ease and familiarity with insurgent techniques. They moved convincingly, unobserved and invisible amongst the crowds of French citizens, hiding in plain sight, not raising alarm until they commenced attacks.
“The ability to blend in ensures lethality in this and future attacks in other cities around the world. We should be under no illusion about the fact, this is the new blueprint for future terrorist attacks.”
She also pointed out: “There are thousands of ‘seasoned fighters’ who have been to Syria and Iraq and Libya who are returning under the radar and blending into communities around the world. These citizens of our countries are a decentralised wave of insurgents whose role is destabilisation of our cities. Paris is only the first of these destabilisation missions.”
Kelshall, from T&T’s well known Kelshall family of military experts, is a Doctoral candidate and BUCSIS Research Fellow at Buckingham University and the UK’s Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies.
She is an independent adviser to British Transport police and Metropolitan Police and also a CNN defence and terrorism expert. She has authored books on civil/military relations—Armed Forces and Government, and Mutiny and Revolution: Military pressure Groups.
On the manner in which the attack was carried out, Kelshall noted: “This type of hybrid attack now arising, which combines the lethality of a suicide attack with active shooters and hostage taking is complex to plan and even harder to deploy, train and prepare a tactical response to. It’s unusual, unprecedented and it is a technique law enforcement, in its present incarnation, is incapable of dealing with.
“This gives rise to the possibility that the Paris group comprised individuals with different degrees of exposure and influence to both methods of terrorist tactics—an alarming development which demonstrates the morphing of the threat we’re facing in the West.”
“Terrorism may no longer be the domain of the ‘terrorist group.’ Terrorism may be evolving to become the domain of anyone who reads and can get training from a seasoned fighter.”
Kelshall said the Paris attackers employed decentralisation, destabilisation and insurgent methodology using mixed techniques in multiple sites simultaneously.
“It’s neither ISIS nor Al-Qaeda but a combination of both employed by invisible citizen soldiers who’ve been trained by seasoned fighters—the hallmarks of the new wave of terrorism Europe is grappling with.”
She said: “A pseudo-military terrorist unit was able to elude the combined efforts of multi-national, joint agency surveillance and monitoring. Europe is on a heightened state of alert and still a cloak of secrecy surrounded the planning and execution of the attacks.
“This is the stuff intelligence nightmares are made of. Attackers were able to mount this sophisticated attack without coming to the attention of law enforcement.”
Saying the simultaneous, co-ordinated attacks were well planned and had significant infrastructure behind it, funding and support, Kelshall warned: “Suicide bombs and active shooters combined in six different locations is beyond the ability of any state law enforcement apparatus, without taking into account the fact that long-range strategic planning is hindered by a lack of chatter and the complete darkness which well informed terrorists now know how to ensure.
“Surveillance of email, phone communications and messaging is now useless and irrelevant. The publicity around monitoring them ensures that those who seek to do harm no longer use them.”