曼徹斯特恐襲有什么特點(diǎn)？

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?

對(duì)于一個(gè)與最近幾年攪動(dòng)歐洲大陸的恐怖暴力活動(dòng)相對(duì)隔絕的國(guó)家而言，看到英國(guó)軍隊(duì)在英國(guó)本土街頭巡邏——這是把恐怖威脅級(jí)別提高到“危急”的一個(gè)后果——特別令人震驚。這讓人想起2003年，托尼•布萊爾(Tony Blair)向希斯羅機(jī)場(chǎng)(Heathrow)派出400名士兵和裝甲車，以及之后危險(xiǎn)的幾年，那時(shí)安全部門擔(dān)心他們正在喪失對(duì)恐襲的掌控。本周一晚曼徹斯特劇場(chǎng)(Manchester Arena)的炸彈爆炸事件讓人想起那段日子。這是自2005年7月7日倫敦爆炸案以來(lái)英國(guó)遭遇的最嚴(yán)重恐怖襲擊，也是曼徹斯特乃至英格蘭北部史上最嚴(yán)重的恐怖襲擊。然而，這一暴行有什么新的特點(diǎn)和技術(shù)升級(jí)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.

英國(guó)國(guó)家反恐安全辦公室(NaCTSO)前官員暗示，此次襲擊是“復(fù)雜”的。這一點(diǎn)沒(méi)錯(cuò)，因?yàn)橄啾冗^(guò)去12年英國(guó)看到的低科技的車輛和刀具襲擊，它在技術(shù)上更高一籌。制造炸彈比購(gòu)買一輛貨車或一把刀要困難得多，而且涉及多個(gè)步驟：研究、購(gòu)買原材料，還可能需要合作，這些都加大了引起情報(bào)機(jī)構(gòu)注意的幾率。

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.

近日軍情五處(MI5)的聯(lián)合反恐分析中心(JTAC)決定上調(diào)國(guó)際恐怖主義威脅級(jí)別，這意味著預(yù)計(jì)下一次襲擊即將發(fā)生，這很可能反映出英國(guó)內(nèi)政大臣安伯•拉德(Amber Rudd)的想法，她承認(rèn)，22歲的薩勒曼•阿貝迪(Salman Abedi)“可能……不是單人作案”，這種炸彈會(huì)需要協(xié)助，因此一個(gè)或多個(gè)同伙仍逍遙法外。

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.

對(duì)這些人的追捕可能會(huì)持續(xù)很長(zhǎng)時(shí)間：還記得2015年11月巴黎襲擊案的參與者薩拉赫•阿布德斯拉姆(Salah Abdeslam)吧，他是在4個(gè)月后才在邊境另一邊的布魯塞爾被抓獲的。在2016年布魯塞爾爆炸案發(fā)生后，警方用了17天的時(shí)間逮捕了多名嫌疑人。最高恐襲威脅級(jí)別很有可能維持到英國(guó)大選之后。

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”.

與此同時(shí)，從更寬廣的視角來(lái)評(píng)估此次恐怖襲擊是有用的。本案只有一名襲擊者，而巴黎爆炸案有9人參與。本案只有一枚炸彈，而布魯塞爾爆炸案中有3枚。盡管本案中的炸彈從設(shè)計(jì)上將彈片數(shù)量最大化，因而表明超出基礎(chǔ)知識(shí)的技術(shù)水平，但它并非極其先進(jìn)的能夠騙過(guò)安檢的非金屬裝置，后者由基地組織(al-Qaeda)也門分支在近年開發(fā)，并導(dǎo)致當(dāng)局最近禁止將筆記本電腦帶入飛機(jī)客艙。行兇者沒(méi)有攜帶原本可能會(huì)讓他在引爆炸彈前造成更大殺傷的突擊步槍。“作為一個(gè)島國(guó)，”英國(guó)國(guó)家打擊犯罪局(National Crime Agency)在去年11月指出，“英國(guó)還沒(méi)有受到歐洲大陸存在的那種相對(duì)自由的槍支流動(dòng)的影響”。

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.

英國(guó)警方和情報(bào)機(jī)構(gòu)還悄悄向黑幫傳話稱，即便是在不經(jīng)意間向圣戰(zhàn)分子提供了武器，也會(huì)給他們帶來(lái)滅頂之災(zāi)。一個(gè)年輕人竟然能夠在當(dāng)?shù)厣鐓^(qū)或當(dāng)局不知情的情況下制造爆炸性裝置，這一點(diǎn)令人深切不安，但就現(xiàn)代國(guó)際恐怖主義而言，其復(fù)雜程度處于中等水平。

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.

目標(biāo)類型也并不太新，盡管選擇了一場(chǎng)主要由年輕女孩參加的音樂(lè)會(huì)。沒(méi)錯(cuò)，圣戰(zhàn)分子世界觀的特點(diǎn)之一是根深蒂固的貶低女性：伊斯蘭國(guó)(IS)在發(fā)表對(duì)此次恐襲負(fù)責(zé)的聲明時(shí)，把這場(chǎng)音樂(lè)會(huì)形容為“不知羞恥”。但一個(gè)整體的趨勢(shì)可能更為相關(guān)。從1970年代到1990年代，很大一部分恐怖活動(dòng)針對(duì)的是安全部隊(duì)、政府建筑和其他官方標(biāo)志。隨著這些目標(biāo)逐步得到加強(qiáng)和保護(hù)——唐寧街(Downing Street)的兩頭在1989年設(shè)置鐵柵欄門，2000年代機(jī)場(chǎng)周圍設(shè)置無(wú)處不在的屏障——學(xué)術(shù)研究表明，恐襲已轉(zhuǎn)向軟目標(biāo)，特別是人群聚集場(chǎng)所。“(伊斯蘭國(guó))似乎偏愛(ài)軟目標(biāo)”，歐洲刑警組織(Europol) 2016年反恐形勢(shì)與趨勢(shì)報(bào)告指出，“因?yàn)橄啾裙絷P(guān)鍵基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施、軍隊(duì)、警察和其他硬目標(biāo)，攻擊這些目標(biāo)更有效”。英國(guó)安全部門考慮這個(gè)風(fēng)險(xiǎn)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，阿貝迪幾乎是最典型的現(xiàn)代歐洲恐怖分子：年輕、男性、第二代移民、被吸引到犯罪團(tuán)伙中，并為當(dāng)局所了解。這是一個(gè)經(jīng)典的特征輪廓。正如法國(guó)學(xué)者奧利維耶•魯瓦(Olivier Roy)對(duì)法國(guó)國(guó)情的觀察收獲那樣，風(fēng)險(xiǎn)在于“第二代移民既不想要父母的文化，也不想要西方文化——這兩者都成了他們自我仇恨的根源”。正如2012年英國(guó)議會(huì)內(nèi)政事務(wù)特別委員會(huì)(Home Affairs Select Committee)所報(bào)告的那樣，“由于團(tuán)伙中大量的改變信仰者和這些團(tuán)體中盛行的意識(shí)形態(tài)，團(tuán)伙成員成了一個(gè)極其脆弱的群體中的一部分”。同時(shí)，就像其他許多人一樣，阿貝迪也在安全部門的視線范圍內(nèi)，盡管只是一個(gè)邊緣人物。

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.

根據(jù)法國(guó)內(nèi)政部長(zhǎng)熱拉爾•科隆(Gerard Collomb)的說(shuō)法，阿貝迪“在幾天前”剛從利比亞返回，并很可能去了敘利亞;這一點(diǎn)比較重大。他將是返回者中第一個(gè)在英國(guó)發(fā)動(dòng)襲擊的人。這將重新引發(fā)一個(gè)疑問(wèn)：安全部門如何以有限資源來(lái)監(jiān)視大量的返回者——可能有幾百人。

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.

曼徹斯特襲擊事件把英國(guó)帶入一段不確定和不安全的時(shí)期。但是，我們的準(zhǔn)備比過(guò)去更充分：包括上一回軍隊(duì)從營(yíng)房出動(dòng)的2003年;倫敦發(fā)生爆炸案的2005年;或是威脅級(jí)別第一次升至“危急”的2006年。確切的威脅也許是個(gè)未知數(shù)，但威脅類型并不陌生。