I lived in London in the 70s, 80s and 90s, throughout the IRA bombing campaigns and with much of my time spent in the West End which was often a focus of them.
Sometimes there were no casualties because the telephoned warnings gave sufficient notice, sometimes people were seriously injured or died.
However there was one major difference between IRA terrorism and modern-day Islamic terrorism, and that difference is crucial in public perception of risk.
The IRA (where not targeting political or military locations) mainly left bombs in public places, the targets were as much the buildings as the people in them. In fact, it could possibly be argued that the buildings were a larger target as successfully bombing them meant that images were shown on TV across the country, pushing the fear into people’s homes via the evening news. Casualties were, in some ways, a bonus collateral, as injuries would be reported but not shown. “Look what has happened to this hotel - you could have been in here and next time it might be you!” Social media didn’t exist and people didn’t carry a camera around with them all the time, now both are accessible from the phone in your pocket.
It wasn’t a benign campaign, it was real, violent and bloody. It was designed to terrorise the population in order to force the hand of politicians. It was scary to live through and yes, I had a number of near misses.
But there was a difference.
Busses and the tube carried posters - “If you see an unattended package or bag, don’t touch it…” etc.
Unattended.
Abandoned.
Alone.
No one in charge of it.
The IRA weren’t suicide bombers. The wanted to live to terrorise again another day. I remember a bomb exploding on a bus in central London, there were injuries, but the main focus of discussion amongst colleagues was that it was karma. The bomb had gone off unexpectedly, either poorly assembled or a dodgy timer, and had injured (killed?) the bomber. It had served him right.
But now…things are different.
Islamic terrorism makes martyrs of those who die in their quest to kill the infidel. Suicide bombing is a mark of pride. Stabbing and slitting throats puts the perpetrator at risk of being killed in the act. Death is seen as a route to eternal happiness, not a risk to be avoided.
It’s very difficult to prevent someone from launching an attack on strangers when they have a belief system which glorifies dying in the act. Succeed and get away with it and you live to repeat the atrocity another day, fail in your endeavour and get shot by police and you join the exalted ranks of martyrs for the cause.
We can’t fight that mindset and attempt to protect our population in the way the authorities did during the height of IRA terrorism.
We just have to hope, each of us, that someone intent on stabbing their way to religious martyrdom gets into the next carriage, next bus, next concert. Anywhere, but the place where we are.