Sri Lanka has entered 2025 with a sigh of relief and with a mind to make this year, a one of recovery and improvement. Last month, Sri Lankan authorities celebrated the arrival of two million tourists to the island nation. Many have today forgotten the October 2023 security scare over Arugam Bay and the realities of the need for persistence vigilance. Persistence, vigilance and security is a modern price we as an island nation, like many others around the world, has to pay to ensure our freedoms and way of life.

The US State of New Orleans, began the new year with a suspect driver of a pickup truck who officials said was “hell-bent on carnage” sped through a crowd of pedestrians in New Orleans’ bustling French Quarter district, killing 10 and injuring 30. US authorities are investigating the matter as a New Year’s Day terrorist attack. According to the Associated Press; The attack occurred around 3.15 a.m. Wednesday along Bourbon Street, known worldwide as one of the largest destinations for New Year’s Eve parties, and with crowds in the city ballooning in anticipation for the Sugar Bowl college football playoff game at the nearby Superdome later in the day. “He was hell-bent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did,” said Police Commissioner Anne Kirkpatrick. She said police officers would work to ensure safety at the Sugar Bowl, indicating that the game would go on as scheduled. It was very intentional behaviour. “This man was trying to run over as many people as he could,” Kirkpatrick said. Alethea Duncan, an assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s New Orleans field office, said officials were investigating the discovery of at least one suspected improvised explosive device at the scene. Officials did not immediately provide an update on the status of the driver, whether there was an ongoing threat to the public or offered a suspected motive. NOLA Ready, the city’s emergency preparedness department, said the injured had been taken to five local hospitals. A police officer was among the injured. In December, in Magdeburg, Germany, at least five people were killed and more than 200 injured when a car slammed into a Christmas market in eastern Germany. The suspect, who was arrested, is a 50-year-old doctor originally from Saudi Arabia who had expressed anti-Muslim views and support for the far-right AFD party. In November, in Zhuhai, China, a 62-year-old driver rammed his car into people exercising at a sports complex in southern China, killing 35 people in the country’s deadliest mass slaying in years. Chinese authorities were of the view that the perpetrator was upset about his divorce but offered few other details.

Over the last decade, the rise of ‘lone-wolf’ or lone-actor attacks by individuals have become a key security concern for many countries across the world. Some have been committed by groups or individuals linked to them. However, most are by individuals. The motives for such attacks, where they could be established, have varied widely. Some were inspired by Islamic militant groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIS, which encouraged followers to carry out low-cost, low-tech attacks with cars and trucks. Others have been linked to mental illness, far-right extremism and online misogyny and a range of others. In the West, law-enforcement authorities term the use of vehicles in such lone-actor attacks as “vehicle as a weapon attacks” and some countries and cities have gone to great lengths to reshape their urban centres and community centres to make them less vulnerable for such attacks. In many parts of the world, as intelligence agencies and law enforcement have become increasingly adept at detecting and disrupting large-scale terrorist plots, potential attackers have instead turned to smaller scale, less sophisticated assaults. In part, this trend reflects a decision by extremist groups to adopt lone-actor terrorism as a tactic, with groups trying to inspire their supporters to carry out such attacks. There is a growing trend of individuals or small cells acting in isolation from a wider group to conduct terrorist activity. Such lone-actor terrorists have today become an acute challenge for law enforcement and intelligence practitioners, as they are difficult to detect and disrupt.

As such, Sri Lanka should be smart not to let its ‘guard down’ and to continue to uphold the safe and secure environment we have built for our citizens and global visitors, on whom we have pinned so much hope on to aid our economic recovery.