社评：英国必须重估反恐政策

For a few years, Britain was spared the worst of the Isis-inspired violence that has hit many European cities. Not any more. This weekend’s attack on London Bridge, in which three men ran down pedestrians with a van and rampaged through crowded bars with knives, was the third time Islamist extremists have struck the UK in as many months. Seven people were killed, besides the attackers, and 48 are in hospital, some in a critical condition.

近几年来，许多欧洲城市都遭遇了“伊斯兰国”(ISIS)煽动的暴力事件，而英国侥幸躲过了最严重的袭击。但这已成为历史。上周末伦敦桥附近发生的袭击——3名男子驾驶一辆货车冲撞行人，随后在挤满人群的酒吧持刀乱砍——是三个月以来伊斯兰主义极端分子对英国发起的第3次袭击。除袭击者外，有7人遇难，48人被送往医院急救，部分伤者伤势严重。

 

We will have to wait to learn more about the identity and motives of the attackers and whether they had outside support. However, there is no doubt that the UK now faces a terrorist threat as acute as that seen in Nice, Berlin or Brussels. With each sickening attack, the pressure on government to respond intensifies; even more so this time, in the final days of a general election campaign.

我们不得不等待几天，才能了解更多关于袭击者的身份、动机以及是否拥有外部支持的信息。然而，毫无疑问的是，英国如今面临的恐怖主义威胁与尼斯、柏林或布鲁塞尔遭遇的威胁一样危急。此类令人发指的袭击每发生一次，政府面临的压力都会陡增，要求其作出回应；这次甚至更大，因其恰好发生在英国大选竞选阶段的尾声。

 

Theresa May rightly confirmed the election would proceed as planned after the appropriate pause in campaigning. She also signalled her intention to step up the fight against radical Islamism, saying, “We cannot and must not pretend that things can continue as they are . . . Enough is enough.”

特里萨•梅(Theresa May)在适时暂停竞选活动之后确认了大选将如期进行，她做得很对。她还表示有意加强打击激进伊斯兰主义的斗争，称：“我们无法，也绝不能假装一切可以保持不变……我们已经受够了。”

 

There is no doubting the resilience of London or the courage and effectiveness of the UK police and emergency services. They halted Saturday’s attack within eight minutes. Yet the prime minister has reason to argue that the changing nature of the security threat to the UK calls for a reassessment of counter terrorism policy.

伦敦快速恢复的能力，或者英国警察及紧急救援服务的勇气和有效性，都毋庸置疑。他们在8分钟内制止了上周六的袭击。然而，首相有理由称，英国面临的安全威胁的性质变化，要求重新评估国家的反恐政策。

 

Last month’s suicide bombing at the Manchester Arena — the worst atrocity on UK soil since the 2005 tube bombings — is no longer typical of the threat the UK faces. It was relatively sophisticated, requiring a degree of technical skill, pre-planning and possibly collaboration. This is the kind of attack the UK’s intelligence services have previously focused on detecting and preventing, to considerable effect.

上月曼彻斯特剧场(Manchester Arena)发生的自杀式炸弹袭击——自2005年伦敦地铁爆炸案以来英国遭遇的最严重恐怖袭击——已不再是英国面临的典型威胁。炸弹袭击相对复杂，需要一定的专门技能、预先策划以及可能的协作。英国情报机构此前专注于侦查和阻止的这种类型的袭击，收到不错的效果。

 

The tactics used at London Bridge fit the more recent trend towards opportunistic, low-tech attacks on soft targets, carried out by individuals or small groups with little history of extremist activity that would lead the police to view them as an immediate threat.

伦敦桥袭击事件采用的策略符合更新近的趋势，即由个人或小团伙针对软目标发起机会主义的、低技术含量的攻击，而袭击者几乎没有从事极端主义活动的历史，这意味着警方不太可能将他们视为迫在眉睫的威胁。

  

As Mrs May underlined, these attacks are all the more disturbing because they are both easy to copy (the London Bridge incident mirrored that at Westminster two months earlier) and difficult to pre-empt. Police face an impossible task of tracking thousands of individuals with extremist leanings, but no clear intention to act on them.

正如梅所强调的，这些恐袭之所以格外令人不安，是因为它们一方面容易仿效（伦敦桥事件映衬了两个月前的威斯敏斯特事件），另一方面难以预先制止。警方面临着一项不可能的任务，要跟踪成千上万名有着极端主义倾向、但没有明确行动意图的人。

 

The prime minister has raised the possibility of tougher powers for the police and security services. A more pressing question may be whether the police have the resources they need, after several years of budget cuts.

首相提出让警察和安全部门拥有更大权力的可能性。更紧迫的问题可能是，经过几年的削减预算后，警方是否有他们所需要的资源。

 

The broader challenge, however, is how to defeat the ideology that lies behind the attacks. Mrs May’s aim is to deny extremists any “safe space”, whether online or in the real world.

但更广泛的挑战是如何打败这些恐袭背后的意识形态。梅的目标是消除极端主义分子的“安全空间”，无论是在网上还是现实世界。

 

This is difficult territory, where there will always be a balance to strike between freedom and security, privacy and protection of the public. It is not clear whether the government’s current efforts to stop young Muslims being radicalised — through the contentious Prevent programme in particular — are helping or hindering.

这是一个困难的领域，始终要在自由与安全，隐私与保护公众之间取得平衡。尚不清楚政府阻止年轻穆斯林被极端化的现有努力——尤其是通过有争议的“Prevent”（预防）计划——是起了帮助还是阻碍作用。

 

Yet the prime minister is right to assert that internet and social media companies must do more to remove harmful material, and to press for action at an international level to hold them to their responsibilities. In so far as the attackers have a purpose, it is to spread fear and hatred and widen the splits in society. They must be met with a new commitment to pluralist values — and they must be denied a platform.

不过首相有一个主张是正确的，她要求互联网和社交媒体公司必须做更多工作来移除有害内容，并要求在国际层面上迫使这些企业承担自己的责任。袭击者的目的是传播恐惧和仇恨，扩大社会分裂。针对这些目的，必须对多元价值观作出新承诺，还必须不让极端主义的意识形态得到一个平台。