The Global Dimension in New Orleans Terror Strike

The deliberate ploughing of a truck into a group of revellers in New Orleans in the United States (US) on New Year's Eve indicates how motivated and brutal the followers of Islamic State (IS) are.

- RK Raghavan

The deliberate ploughing of a truck into a group of revellers in New Orleans in the United States (US) on New Year's Eve indicates how motivated and brutal the followers of Islamic State (IS) are. At least 14 people were killed in the attack by Shamsud Din Jabbar, the 42-year-old US army veteran who had hired the vehicle to commit the act of terror in the city's crowded Bourbon Street.

The incident comes at a time when most of the world's terror investigators had assumed they had broken the back of the lethal group that IS was. It confirms that enchantment with terror has come to stay despite all the efforts of counter-terror agencies. The claimed actual numbers of IS followers and sympathisers in the world may be low. But statistics are neither accurate nor germane. What is relevant is the depth and intensity of indoctrination that is directed against the young mind.

New Orleans once again demonstrates that law enforcement can never afford to relax its vigil. One determined individual is enough to cause panic and devastation. The latter's only qualification for enlisting with the IS was his willingness to die for the cause of his religion. What kind of safety measures can we, therefore, build against such limitless focus on the outcome rather than effort? Ethics do not figure at all here.