YOU ASKED : WHAT WENT WRONG IN PARIS???

I am still shocked and deeply saddened by the brutal terrorist attacks in Paris. It was by far the most abhorrent attack (series of attacks) in Europe in a generation. Words fail me.

Naturally, many tough questions were immediately asked in every intelligence and security department in the world.

Well, it is blatantly obvious that the French Intelligence Services failed. There is no doubt that it is hard for the police/military to be everywhere and for intelligence to protect everything, mainly because it is usually difficult to track one or two people, especially lone wolves, but in this case, it seems like it was a big group of organized people that operated with high levels of sophistication (similar attacks have also taken place in Mumbai, Nairobi and Peshawar); this was clearly a military-style attack that had to be rehearsed, and there were at least eight terrorists involved, with weapons, explosives and suicide belts, acting in concert. Sadly, French intelligence failed to observe the “observables”, as we say.

Traditionally, France’s counter terrorism apparatus was considered one of the best in Europe and they should have been able to get wind of the planned onslaught. However, after the Central Directorate of General Intelligence and the Directorate of Territorial Surveillance were merged, the new “General Directorate for Internal Security” that was created is undoubtedly larger and more technologically advanced, but its performance is far weaker and less effective, predominantly because it lacks a solid organizational structure, so that the flow of information/intel can be properly assessed and real threats can be identified in time.

It is worth mentioning that the reasons for France’s intelligence and security struggles are many. It is no secret that many neighborhoods in Paris (and many parts of Europe in general) have turned into all-Muslim territories, utterly neglected by the intelligence services, because they are deemed to lack the capacity, means and sophistication to pull off large-scale attacks; needless to say that they are also neglected economically and socially. Areas like these provide recruits to the ranks of ISIS and some of these recruits are then ordered back to Europe, to set up sleeper cells and await the call for terrorist action.

Secondly, community policing in France is virtually inexistent. Soft spots, streets, locations, places- this all involves local knowledge and local people. Gadgets and security officials will only go so far. It is hard to believe that none of this was picked up earlier. The problem here is the relationship between a nation and its Muslim community. France is indeed –contrary to popular belief- an extremely tolerant and protective state. However, this balance is really delicate: on one hand, some French have traditionally regarded the Maghrebis (people from Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco), as part of ‘the other,’ because of the cultural divide that hinders interactions between the two sides. Subsequently, there is no collectivist mindset and no trust or cooperation between the two parties, whatsoever (best case scenario, they ignore each other). On the other hand, exactly because of the long-standing notion of stereotypes regarding Muslim population in France, most people are scared of reporting suspected jihadi terror activity out of fear of being labelled “islamophobic” or “racist” and they, willingly, turn a blind eye to the whole problem. I have talked to many people these last couple of days and that’s the answer I got. In this context, Britain has a radically different approach to immigration: the Muslim community in Britain is working with their country’s security agencies closely and the results have been, on many occasions, impressive.

Regarding the counter terrorism responses, France is now conducting major airstrikes on ISIS targets in Syria (particularly Raqqa, for obvious reasons). People have been asking me: “what do we do now”? The answer is obviously not simple and there are no easy solutions. I think, first and foremost, we have to be more vigilant, as a society. Secondly, we need to penetrate the terrorist networks. In order to defeat a network, you must penetrate it; that means old-fashioned espionage. Human Intelligence (HUMINT) is an indispensable source of intelligence gathering, especially after the limitations of technological intelligence gathering systems and electronic/signals intelligence revealed themselves. Moreover, cooperation between the different security wings is a key element to bolstering the intelligence apparatus. But, more importantly, we should try to focus on the root cause and deal with it. Unless there is a genuine political will for conflict prevention, even “intelligence masterstrokes” will have limited success.