This year may herald a far more complex and dangerous period for democracies fighting extremism, especially with the exploitation of the internet and encrypted messaging. The combined effect of the loss of the ‘physical so-called Caliphate’ and successful disruptive counter-terror operations may be leading to a trend of more ‘disorganised terrorism’ and the driving of terrorists into the ungoverned spaces of the internet and failed states causing a decentralised and ‘Virtual Caliphate’.
So writes Ed Butler, Head of Risk Analysis at Pool Re, the UK’s terrorism reinsurance pool, in a threat bulletin, Terrorism Frequency Report. It’s produced by the Scheme’s Terrorism Research and Analysis Centre (TRAC).
He says: “Off the shelf technologies and combined methodologies, including the use of more powerful home-made and commercially available explosives and IEDs, is likely to increase in 2018.
“Pool Re has recently taken steps to close the cyber gap with the inclusion in its cover (from April 2018) of physical acts of destruction caused by a cyber trigger into the scheme. We are also working closely with all our stakeholders in identifying and closing the Protection and Information gaps. We continue to explore ways of including Non-Damage Business Interruption (NDBI) into the scheme and, at the same time, seek to increase the take-up of terrorism insurance by the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to meet these unprecedented threats.”
That cyber cover, announced in November, which will exclude intangible assets, will be offered as standard to all policyholders which purchase terrorism insurance from Pool Re members.
The document discusses the threat posed by improvised explosive devices (IEDs), using online recipes and forums, as a means of causing damage and inflicting mass casualties in a potential shift towards ‘insurgency style’ terrorist tactics on UK streets. A range of targets may include crowded places, transport hubs and iconic sites. The possibility of further IEDs having timers, rather than used as part of a martyrdom operation, is indicative of a sustained bombing campaign rather than isolated attacks. This would truly mark a step-change in the contemporary UK threat, the report warns.
