At the end of 2018, it is time to review the highlights of the Defense and Security continuum. Has the Threat decreased? Not really! Non-exhaustive list:

In Afghanistan, attacks perpetrated by the Taliban or others continue to ravage the country: 27/01, 100 deaths in Kabul; 31/07, a bus carrying passengers jumps on a mine, makes 11 dead and 31 wounded in the West of Afghanistan, etc.

In Syria, situation tends to stabilize and allow the return of thousands of refugees who had fled the abuses of the Islamic State and the fight between pro-Assad forces and forces supported by Turks and NATO, but bloody reminiscences punctuate this return to peace: 25/07 attacks of the Islamic State in Soueïda (region populated with Druze near Jordan) made about 300 dead...

Mali and Sahel-Saharan band: the August presidential election renews the outgoing president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, at the head of Mali; however, the French forces deployed in the region get bogged down over the months and Islamists continue to evolve on their playing field...

Germany: 15/10 at the Cologne train station, an Islamist hostage-taking makes two more wounded in addition to the assailant seriously injured by the police, who had launched a Molotov cocktail earlier in a restaurant...

Belgium: 29/05 in Liege, two policewomen and the passenger of a car are killed in a shootout preceded by a knife attack claimed by ISIS; 20/11 in Brussels, a 34-year-old man attacks a police officer by shouting "Allah Akbar" before being neutralized ...

Netherlands: 31/08, a 19-year-old Afghan attacked two Americans at the Amsterdam Central Station, the assailant was wounded by police fire; the terrorist track was held by the investigators ...

UK: 14/08 in London, a 29-year-old Sudanese refugee runs over pedestrians with his car in front of the British Parliament and injures 3 ...

In France, the threat of Islamist attacks is still present; they are perpetrated now regularly by hybrid individuals (offender turned jihadist), who mostly act alone but, no doubt, have the support of the neighborhood community: 23/03, attack in Carcassonne and Trèbes (4 dead, including Colonel Arnaud Beltrame, and 15 wounded) claimed by ISIS; 12/05 in Paris, a 20-year-old Chechen attacks civilians and police officers in the Opera district, wounding four people, two of them seriously, before being shot dead by the police; 17/06 in a supermarket in La Seyne-sur-mer, a woman armed with a knife wounded two people screaming "Allah Akbar" before being arrested; 11/12 in Strasbourg, a 29-year-old Islamized offender opens fire near the Christmas market, killing 5 people and injuring 11 others ...

Text published in issue 206 of newsletter “SECURITY DEFENSE Business Review” on 18/12/2018