曼彻斯特恐袭有什么特点

For a nation that has remained relatively insulated from the terrorist violence that roiled the continent in recent years, the sight of British troops patrolling mainland UK streets — one consequence of the terror threat level rising to “critical” — will come as a particular shock. It will raise the spectre of 2003, when Tony Blair sent 400 soldiers with armoured vehicles to Heathrow, and the dangerous years that followed, when security services feared that they were losing their grasp on the problem. The bombing of Manchester Arena on Monday night is redolent of that period. It is the worst terrorist attack on Britain since the July 7 London bombings more than a decade ago and the worst-ever attack on Manchester and the north. But how new and advanced was this atrocity?

对于一个与最近几年搅动欧洲大陆的恐怖暴力活动相对隔绝的国家而言，看到英国军队在英国本土街头巡逻——这是把恐怖威胁级别提高到“危急”的一个后果——特别令人震惊。这让人想起2003年，托尼?布莱尔(Tony Blair)向希斯罗机场(Heathrow)派出400名士兵和装甲车，以及之后危险的几年，那时安全部门担心他们正在丧失对恐袭的掌控。本周一晚曼彻斯特剧场(Manchester Arena)的炸弹爆炸事件让人想起那段日子。这是自2005年7月7日伦敦爆炸案以来英国遭遇的最严重恐怖袭击，也是曼彻斯特乃至英格兰北部史上最严重的恐怖袭击。然而，这一暴行有什么新的特点和技术升级呢？

Former officials of the National Counter Terrorism Office (NCTO) have suggested that the attack was “sophisticated”. This is true, insofar as it represents a step up from the low-technology vehicle and knife attacks seen in the UK over the past 12 years. Building a bomb is significantly harder than procuring a van or a blade, and entails several steps — research, acquisition of materials, and perhaps collaboration — that increase the probability of detection by the intelligence services.

英国国家反恐安全办公室(NaCTSO)前官员暗示，此次袭击是“复杂”的。这一点没错，因为相比过去12年英国看到的低科技的车辆和刀具袭击，它在技术上更高一筹。制造炸弹比购买一辆货车或一把刀要困难得多，而且涉及多个步骤：研究、购买原材料，还可能需要合作，这些都加大了引起情报机构注意的几率。

Yesterday’s decision by MI5’s Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) to raise the threat level for international terrorism, meaning that an attack is expected imminently, probably reflects home secretary Amber Rudd’s acknowledgment that 22-year-old Salman Abedi “likely?.?.?.?wasn’t doing this on his own”, that such a bomb would have required assistance, and that one or more accomplices therefore remain on the loose.

近日军情五处(MI5)的联合反恐分析中心(JTAC)决定上调国际恐怖主义威胁级别，这意味着预计下一次袭击即将发生，这很可能反映出英国内政大臣安伯?拉德(Amber Rudd)的想法，她承认，22岁的萨勒曼?阿贝迪(Salman Abedi)“可能……不是单人作案”，这种炸弹会需要协助，因此一个或多个同伙仍逍遥法外。

The search for such individuals may be protracted: recall that Salah Abdeslam, participant in the Paris attacks in November 2015, was only caught four months later, across the border in Brussels. After the 2016 Brussels bombings, it took 17 days for police to arrest several suspects. There is a strong possibility that the threat level will remain elevated through the general election.

对这些人的追捕可能会持续很长时间：还记得2015年11月巴黎袭击案的参与者萨拉赫?阿布德斯拉姆(Salah Abdeslam)吧，他是在4个月后才在边境另一边的布鲁塞尔被抓获的。在2016年布鲁塞尔爆炸案发生后，警方用了17天的时间逮捕了多名嫌疑人。最高恐袭威胁级别很有可能维持到英国大选之后。

At the same time it is useful to assess this attack in a broader perspective. There was just one attacker, compared with the nine involved in Paris. There was one bomb, compared with the three used in Brussels. The bomb, though designed to maximise shrapnel, and therefore indicating more than rudimentary knowledge, was not one of the highly advanced non-metallic devices, capable of bypassing security screening, developed by al-Qaeda’s Yemen branch in recent years, and which has prompted the most recent ban on laptops in cabin baggage. The perpetrator was not carrying an assault rifle that might have allowed him to maximise casualties before detonation. “As an island,” noted the National Crime Agency in November, “the UK is insulated from the relatively free flow of firearms which exists in continental Europe”.

与此同时，从更宽广的视角来评估此次恐怖袭击是有用的。本案只有一名袭击者，而巴黎爆炸案有9人参与。本案只有一枚炸弹，而布鲁塞尔爆炸案中有3枚。尽管本案中的炸弹从设计上将弹片数量最大化，因而表明超出基础知识的技术水平，但它并非极其先进的能够骗过安检的非金属装置，后者由基地组织(al-Qaeda)也门分支在近年开发，并导致当局最近禁止将笔记本电脑带入飞机客舱。行凶者没有携带原本可能会让他在引爆炸弹前造成更大杀伤的突击步枪。“作为一个岛国，”英国国家打击犯罪局(National Crime Agency)在去年11月指出，“英国还没有受到欧洲大陆存在的那种相对自由的枪支流动的影响”。

British police and intelligence agencies have also quietly signalled to gangs that even inadvertent provision of weapons to jihadis would bring down crushing pressure. It is profoundly troubling that a young man should have been able to build an explosive device without the knowledge of his local community or the authorities, but in the context of modern international terrorism, this ranked midway on the scale of sophistication.

英国警方和情报机构还悄悄向黑帮传话称，即便是在不经意间向圣战分子提供了武器，也会给他们带来灭顶之灾。一个年轻人竟然能够在当地社区或当局不知情的情况下制造爆炸性装置，这一点令人深切不安，但就现代国际恐怖主义而言，其复杂程度处于中等水平。

Nor was there much new in the type of target, despite the choice of a concert dominated by young girls. It is true that the jihadi worldview has been marked by a deep-seated strain of misogyny; Islamic State described the concert as “shameless”, in its claim of responsibility. But a broader trend may be more relevant. From the 1970s to the 1990s, a large proportion of terrorism was directed at security forces, government buildings, and other manifestations of officialdom. As these targets were progressively hardened and protected — consider the gates erected on Downing Street in 1989, or the ubiquitous barriers around airports in the 2000s — academic research shows that attacks were diverted to soft targets, particularly large gatherings of people. “[Islamic State] appears to have a preference for soft targets,” noted Europol’s 2016 terrorist trend report, “because they are more effective than attacks on critical infrastructure, the military, police and other hard targets”. British security forces have factored in this risk for well over a decade.

目标类型也并不太新，尽管选择了一场主要由年轻女孩参加的音乐会。没错，圣战分子世界观的特点之一是根深蒂固的贬低女性：伊斯兰国(IS)在发表对此次恐袭负责的声明时，把这场音乐会形容为“不知羞耻”。但一个整体的趋势可能更为相关。从1970年代到1990年代，很大一部分恐怖活动针对的是安全部队、政府建筑和其他官方标志。随着这些目标逐步得到加强和保护——唐宁街(Downing Street)的两头在1989年设置铁栅栏门，2000年代机场周围设置无处不在的屏障——学术研究表明，恐袭已转向软目标，特别是人群聚集场所。“（伊斯兰国）似乎偏爱软目标”，欧洲刑警组织(Europol) 2016年反恐形势与趋势报告指出，“因为相比攻击关键基础设施、军队、警察和其他硬目标，攻击这些目标更有效”。英国安全部门考虑这个风险已有10多年。

Finally, Abedi could hardly be more typical of the modern European terrorist: a young, male, second-generation immigrant, drawn into gangs, and known to the authorities. This is a classic profile. As the French scholar Olivier Roy has observed in the French context, there is a risk that “second-generation immigrants neither want the culture of their parents nor a western culture — both have become sources of their self-hatred”. Gang members, as the UK home affairs select committee reported in 2012, were part of a “critically vulnerable group because of the significant numbers of converts in gangs and the kind of ideology prevalent within these groups”. And, like so many others, Abedi was on the security services’ radar, albeit as a fringe figure.

最后，阿贝迪几乎是最典型的现代欧洲恐怖分子：年轻、男性、第二代移民、被吸引到犯罪团伙中，并为当局所了解。这是一个经典的特征轮廓。正如法国学者奥利维耶?鲁瓦(Olivier Roy)对法国国情的观察收获那样，风险在于“第二代移民既不想要父母的文化，也不想要西方文化——这两者都成了他们自我仇恨的根源”。正如2012年英国议会内政事务特别委员会(Home Affairs Select Committee)所报告的那样，“由于团伙中大量的改变信仰者和这些团体中盛行的意识形态，团伙成员成了一个极其脆弱的群体中的一部分”。同时，就像其他许多人一样，阿贝迪也在安全部门的视线范围内，尽管只是一个边缘人物。

What is significant is that Abedi had returned from Libya “days ago”, and probably travelled to Syria too, according to French interior minister Gerard Collomb. He would be the first such returnee to conduct an attack in the UK. This will reignite the question of how security services can monitor the large number of returnees — possibly several hundred — with limited resources.

根据法国内政部长热拉尔?科隆(Gerard Collomb)的说法，阿贝迪“在几天前”刚从利比亚返回，并很可能去了叙利亚；这一点比较重大。他将是返回者中第一个在英国发动袭击的人。这将重新引发一个疑问：安全部门如何以有限资源来监视大量的返回者——可能有几百人。

The Manchester attack takes the UK into a period of uncertainty and insecurity. But we are better prepared than we were in 2003, when troops last marched out of the barracks; in 2005, when bombs struck London; or 2006, when the threat level first turned critical. The exact threat may be uncertain, but its type is not unknown.

曼彻斯特袭击事件把英国带入一段不确定和不安全的时期。但是，我们的准备比过去更充分：包括上一回军队从营房出动的2003年；伦敦发生爆炸案的2005年；或是威胁级别第一次升至“危急”的2006年。确切的威胁也许是个未知数，但威胁类型并不陌生。