Terror expert: France hostage situation was 'atypical' attack carried out by 'amateur'
Major General Chip Chapman tells Sky News the operational planning behind an attack in Trebes was not "highly developed".
Saturday 24 March 2018 12:34, UK
A British terror expert has said a hostage situation in the south of France was an "atypical" attack carried out by an "amateur".
Major General Chip Chapman, former head of counter-terrorism at the Ministry of Justice, tells Sky News the attack - in which the hostage-taker was shot dead after killing at least two people at a supermarket in Trebes - did not appear to have been very well planned.
What is atypical in this sense is most of the attacks we saw last year were weapon attacks followed by some follow up either a bladed weapon or some sort of long-barrelled or short-barrelled weapon.
It is unusual in that if he had intent, in which he has, I'd have expected him to use the car vehicle as a weapon
before he went on some sort of shooting rampage, so it suggests to me that there's some sort of amateurism from this guy.
That doesn't again take away from the fact that this is a serious incident.
But it does not seem that his operational planning, that the way he's gone about this, is very highly developed.
This attack highlights the challenges faced by French security forces in dealing with the country's terror threat.
The current French (threat level) is the same as ours really.
There is some suggestion the man who perpetrated this was known to the authorities.
The DGSI, the French equivalent of the MI5, was only able to follow 40 of the 2,000 most dangerous extremists.
So it is no wonder that even though he might have been known to the authorities he may have slipped through the net.