Heightened appeals for more caution and training

The security director for Geneva calls Switzerland ‘deaf and blind in the fight against terrorism’, while the Swiss army chief warns of a heightened terror threat. Is it time to start worrying more? Pierre Maudet, Geneva’s head of the department of security and economic affairs, on Sunday urged the Swiss cabinet to focus more on fighting terrorism – and said it would not be a bad idea for the army and police to hold national exercises on how to respond to an attack in one or more Swiss cities. ‘We must not be naive,' Maudet said in an interview published by the SonntagsZeitung and Schweiz am Sonntag newspapers. ‘We have to prepare for new threats.’ His main concern is for Geneva, which he describes as a target for radical groups because it is the European home of the United Nations and many other international organisations. However, according to him, all of Switzerland lags behind other nations in its preparedness and intelligence gathering – and must do more to ...