Insider Terrorist Attack

From Schneier on Security: Insider Terrorist Attack.

Pakistani Army officer as suicide bomber:

According to reliable sources in the local police, a Pashtun army officer belonging to the elite Special Services Group, whose younger sister was reportedly among the 300 girls killed during the Pakistan Army's commando raid on the Lal Masjid in Islamabad between July 10 and 13, blew himself up during dinner at the SSG's headquarters mess at Tarbela Ghazi, 100 km south of Islamabad, on the night of September 13, killing 19 other officers.

There probably isn't any practicable way to prevent these sorts of attacks by trusted insiders.

I suppose that is true if you start from a position that you needed to kill 300 girls in a commando raid.

On the other hand if you don't kill 300 girls in commando raids there are a fewer people intending to kill you and so you are less at risk from suicide attacks by their brothers.

Remind you of anything? How about Matthew 26:52

"Put your sword back in its place," Jesus said to him, "for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.

The solutions to terrorism do not lie in conventional military security options but in love, justice, mercy, compassion and peacemaking.

Comments

[Peter Kirk]

I think there are certain nations which are liable to tend in certain unhealthy directions because of their very principles of foundation. Pakistan, "the land of the pure", is one of them because of the sectarianism of its founding principles. Another one was implicit in your Connected Views post, for reasons partly implicit in this post by Suzanne.

[Dave Warnock]

There are good and bad tendencies in all nations. Maybe we like to think of ourselves as being "the good guys" but we still sell arms to people who torture and deny freedom.

All of which simply supports my argument that

"The solutions to terrorism do not lie in conventional military security options but in love, justice, mercy, compassion and peacemaking."

The same is true for all nations for those within and without.

[Peter Kirk]

Indeed, Dave, I do agree with your argument. We shouldn't forget that our own nation grew rich on the slave trade, so we can't really snipe at others' founders.