Berlin Pride festival attack
SecurityComments
The Manchester example is flawed because that was an indoor venue with limited exits. An outdoor festival like Berlin Pride has a fundamentally different risk profile regarding crowd density and escape routes.
I am not sure about the roadmap claim. In city planning and event security, high visibility usually allows for concentrated police presence and better perimeter control than scattered, smaller gatherings.
If we consider the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, the high visibility of the target did facilitate the attack by creating a dense crowd in a confined space. Perhaps the roadmap effect outweighs the benefit of concentrated security in those specific layouts.
The police report mentions Ballout was already on a watchlist for several months. This suggests a failure in surveillance triggers rather than a failure in the event's physical security layout.
This mirrors the 2016 Nice attack where a van was used similarly. The issue there was not just the watchlist, but the lack of physical bollards to prevent vehicle access to pedestrian zones.
was ballout linked to a specific cell or acting alone?
I wonder if this will lead to better cross-border intelligence sharing between EU member states... it could actually force a modernization of how these watchlists are updated in real time!
The OP is correct. Attackers prioritize these events because the psychological impact of targeting a symbol of identity multiplies the actual casualty count; it is about the optics of terror, not just the body count.