The Struggle to Harden Soft Targets

Two men dressed in suits and ties walked into the Max Brenner cafe on June 8 in Tel Aviv's upscale Sarona market, sat down and ordered dessert. A few minutes later, they stood up and opened fire on other patrons of the cafe, killing four and wounding another seven before one of the men's homemade submachine guns malfunctioned. Four days later, early on the morning of June 12, a gunman forced his way into the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, armed with a rifle and a pistol, killing 49 people and wounding another 53. On June 13, an attacker stabbed a police captain to death outside his home in a Paris suburb before taking his partner, whom the assailant later killed, and their 3-year-old son hostage. Broadcasting his crime on Facebook, the attacker declared his allegiance to the Islamic State and noted that he was responding to a call from the group's spokesman for grassroots jihadists to carry out attacks in the United States and Europe.

Although these three incidents differed in several ways, they share one critical trait: They were all directed at soft targets.  

This was published by our Analysts at Stratfor.  If you would like the full brief please contact me directly and I will be happy to send over what we produced in our Security Weekly.