The focus must be on local intelligence. The key to breaking the back of terrorism is in penetrating the terror cell. This is the significant lesson drawn from the tracking of Al Qaeda cells by Scotland Yard and MI5.

This can be achieved more easily than is imagined. This is particularly so when a large segment of minority youth are not disaffected and will be more than willing to help the authorities. Greater investment in human and technical intelligence, particularly communication surveillance, will pay rich dividends.

Immediate succour, however, calls for a return to the focus on grassroots policing, checkpoints, surveillance of temporary residents and new entrants to an area and the tagging of known anti-social elements and criminals, while strictly avoiding racial profiling. Encouraging locals to report unusual occurrences, being citizen policemen just as some of our television news channels are exhorting them to be, will involve the people in positive ways. Every terrorist incident has enough tell-tale signs before the event. Sniffing out plans can come about through effective local policing. That alone will show some light at the end of this dark tunnel.

The writer is a security analyst