European Cities Add Barriers to Thwart Vehicle Attacks

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/22/world/europe/europe-attacks-safety-barriers.html

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Even before the attacks last week in Spain, European cities were installing barriers to protect pedestrians after a series of attacks using cars, vans and trucks.

A key inspiration for the current wave of attacks is the Islamic State propagandist Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, who is believed to have been killed last year in Syria. “Smash his head with a rock,” he urged the group’s adherents in a 2014 speech, “or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car.”

Several terrorists have done just that. Here’s how countries across Europe are taking steps to increase safety.

Some cities — including Madrid, Málaga, Palma and Zaragoza — erected barriers after a pair of attacks, in Tunisia in 2015 and in Barcelona and the seaside resort of Cambrils last week.

The cities placed the squat posts known as bollards, planters and cement barriers along busy pedestrian streets and squares to restrict access and improve security.

After truck attacks last year in Nice and Berlin, the Spanish police advised cities to introduce tougher controls along key roads. Following that recommendation, Madrid also banned trucks from entering its city center ahead of its traditional Epiphany street parade in January.

In Barcelona, the authorities decided not to introduce bollards along Las Ramblas, the promenade where 13 people were run down by a van last Thursday. The city increased its police presence there, but officials decided that bollards would hinder access for cleaning and emergency services and disrupt traffic.

The attacks in Spain prompted the authorities in Milan to install concrete barriers on streets leading to the city’s Gothic-style main cathedral and the adjacent Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, a shopping center popular with tourists. City officials said that local markets and San Siro Stadium, the soccer venue shared by A.C. Milan and Inter Milan, would be patrolled more closely.

The assailant in the Berlin truck, Anis Amri, was shot and killed outside Milan by police last December.

Officials from cities including Rome and Genoa, along with the Vatican, have met to discuss security.

In Florence, officials announced on Tuesday that they would use barriers and oversized flower pots for added safety. The measures will be “coherent with our ideal of beauty,” said Federico Gianassi, Florence’s councilor responsible for security. The city already has traffic barriers, a spokeswoman for the city said, but they were not installed with terrorism in mind.

So far, Italy has been spared a major jihadist attack like the ones that have hit Belgium, Britain, France, Germany and Spain since 2015, but the authorities are urging vigilance.

“We must acknowledge that this threat concerns everyone,” Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said at a conference in Rimini on Sunday, referring to the Islamic State. “No country, and so of course, even Italy, can feel safe against this threat.”

Britain had been spared from the recent wave of terrorist attacks, but that changed this year. A man killed five people, including a police officer, in a car and knife attack on and near Westminster Bridge in London in March, and three men killed eight people in a van and knife attack on and near London Bridge in June.

Days later, a man from Wales plowed a car into a group of Muslims outside a mosque and an Islamic cultural center in London, killing a man.

The authorities are now putting in place several measures to deal with the threat. In London, the police have installed a portable system of barriers — some resembling traditional obstacles, and others using flower pots and sculptures — to prevent vehicles from entering pedestrianized areas.

Large, solid barriers have been installed on the London and Westminster Bridges, along with temporary installations in the capital in St. James’s Park and Buckingham Palace.

In Frankfurt, where the streets radiating from the city’s main train station were closed for the Bahnhofsviertel night street festival last week, the authorities took no chances. They added 3-ton concrete barriers, mindful of the attacks in Europe, most notably a truck assault that killed 15 people last year at a Christmas market in Berlin.

Over the past year, said Thomas Feda, the head of tourism for the city of Frankfurt, the threat posed by vehicles has led to the creation of a new industry. Security companies are trying to help cities develop more effective ways to protect their residents, while also preserving access for emergency vehicles.

Each city and region develops its own security measures. Although little has changed in everyday life for Germans, concrete barriers have become commonplace at festivals and gatherings from Düsseldorf to Berlin. That includes the Museum Embankment Festival in Frankfurt this weekend and the “Fan Mile” in Berlin, stretching from the Brandenburg Gate to the Tiergarten, for a German Cup soccer match.

The authorities in Munich have added security measures for Oktoberfest, requiring that all delivery trucks entering the festival grounds register in advance and leave the premises by 9 a.m., at which point visitors will be allowed to enter. In previous years the beer tents opened to the public at 8 a.m.

No other European country has been hit by the recent terrorism more than France, where 239 people died in major attacks in and around Paris in January and November 2015 and in Nice in July 2016.

In Paris, officials announced in February that the city would extend the Eiffel Tower’s security perimeter to include two small public gardens on its eastern and western sides, and build walls on the northern and southern edges.

The Nice attack involved a man who killed 86 people as he plowed a stolen cargo truck into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day, and the local authorities have invested around 20 million euros to protect pedestrians with bollards and steel fences.

At the Cannes Film Festival this year, metal barriers and large concrete flower pots were placed along the beachside road. In Avignon, where a popular theater festival takes place annually, high-end Israeli Mobilar vehicle barriers were put in place.