Having more troops on the streets cannot prevent car bombs or suicide bombers. Terrorists do not put stickers on their cars to say this is a terrorist vehicle. Patient intelligence, interception of phone calls and emails, eavesdropping on their networks, picking up intelligence from the streets and local communities are the ways the authorities need to develop their policing, with a view to preventing a terrorist attack. If the US and UK really want to help the Iraqi authorities they should send more counter terrorist back room staff to guide and train a specialist Iraqi police force determined to infiltrate the networks and crack their communications systems. Having lots of troops around to shoot the terrorists after they have carried out their act of terror is a??bad idea – and shooting people on suspicion of terrorism is??an even worse one??because they may not be terrorists.

It is the job of the authorities to prevent terrorism by foiling plots, and to prosecute terrorists where they have committed an act of terror and have not killed themselves in the process. It is the job of Iraq’s politicians to heal wounds in their communities in a way which gradually squeezes popular support for the terrorists. The recent bomb is just more proof, if proof were needed, that increasing the number of foreign troops in Iraq’s capital is not going to solve the problem.