Lately in Europe, apart from suicide attacks, it is the knife attacks that have spread death and the seed of fear. In Paris a Muslim perpetrator who attributed his actions to IS (and IS accepted them under its ideological umbrella) entered the home of a police officer and killed both him and his wife (also working in the police), before getting killed by the law enforcement authorities and fortunately before harming the small child of the family. The killer filmed and posted his actions in Facebook. A few months before on a train in Germany another perpetrator attacked passengers with a knife. Although he shouted “Allahu Akbar” the German authorities seem to connect the incident with the perpetrators phychiatric problems and not with a terroristic cause. Shot but also stubbed a dozen times, a young female MP in Leeds died by the hand of an attacker, who appears to be driven by political reasons. The three events show of course no relevance between them and there is still research about their circumstances, as well as about the extend extremism and organized group activity could be behind the killings. Nevertheless, the above stabbings are a good reason to start contemplating on a possible new operational threat: knife attacks. Continue reading →