CEP Senior Advisor Ian Acheson writes: "Desecration is a key goal for violent extremists. Terrorists abhor normality. If your objective is to terrify and demoralise a population and also to provoke a security response that makes life more restricted — it has a perverse logic about it. Attacking revered or venerated institutions is therefore a relatively low-risk-high-gain tactic, especially where there are large numbers of targets and their ability to be protected is compromised by scale or purpose."