A new response to a new kind of war
The 14 dead and the scores injured in two attacks fell victim to the newest weapon of urban warfare — the white van, which has been described as the poor man’s guided missile.
The victims, who came from 24 countries, were murdered or injured for no reason other than that they were enjoying a post siesta stroll along Barcelona’s Las Ramblas. Their deaths were entirely random, their identity meant nothing to their killer. Indeed, their deaths were almost secondary — spreading fear, inculcating hate, and disrupting our settled, civilised way of life are the real objectives. It may be discomfiting to suggest that Thursday’s deaths and injuries, and so many more before them, are just collateral damage in the endless war between Isis and the civilised world but that is, tragically and undeniably, the case. The real objectives are to provoke an over-reaction, to add momentum to their terrorism and convince their bewildered supporters that they have a capacity to inflict carnage on infidels more or less at will.
