Just when we thought — and as I wrote last week — that the militant Islamic State group was losing territory and coming under increasing pressure, it has unleashed a devastating series of attacks in Brussels. Clearly, the organisation retains the capacity to carry out suicide bombings far from its base.
But on closer examination, these recent terrorist atrocities do not necessarily attest to IS’s strength. After all, as we have seen again and again in Pakistan, it doesn’t take much to pull a cord attached to a suicide vest. If one has agents in place, it is not terribly difficult to put together a few commonly available ingredients to make an explosive device in the kitchen. And both Paris and Brussels have large populations of angry young Muslims who fall prey to IS’s seductive siren song.
In the immediate aftermath of the Brussels metro and airport attacks, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour asked US Secretary of State John Kerry if people now needed to live in fear of regular terrorist attacks in the West, and if they would henceforth have to go about their business with the expectation that a bomb could go off any moment. In short, she asked Kerry, “Is this the new normal?” The American official was vociferous in denying this possibility, insisting that the scourge of terrorism would be wiped out.
But how, exactly? Like a Hydra-headed monster, when you cut off one head, another one replaces it. If anything, the threat from militant Islam has morphed and multiplied until its tentacles have spread across continents and into cities from Birmingham to Berlin. Groups like IS become vulnerable to conventional attacks when they begin behaving like states. But when they work through radicalised supporters living normal lives in the West, they are very hard to detect and neutralise.
Similarly, while the Pakistan armed forces have been successful in battering and pushing back the militants who had taken control of the tribal areas, it is another matter trying to stop their attacks against the Rangers in Karachi. Terrorists are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their use of communication devices, leaving few electronic signatures.
So what exactly are jihadists trying to achieve by their bombing campaign in the West? Their calculation is that their acts of wanton violence against civilians will cause a backlash against the local Muslim populations. This, the perpetrators and their controllers think, will further radicalise young men already disillusioned and marginalised by their experience of living on the fringes of Western society.
In the calculus of the terrorists, this campaign will also result in a steady erosion of human rights and democratic values. Already, the anti-Muslim rhetoric in the American election race has been heightened with Ted Cruz calling for police patrols in areas where Muslims live. And Donald Trump, the front-runner, sees his demand to exclude Muslims from America justified by the Brussels attacks.
One group sure to feel the impact of the IS attacks are the Syrian refugees still streaming into Europe. Although this flow might soon slow down as a result of the recent EU deal with Turkey, these desperate asylum-seekers have already seen a cooling of the reception they had received earlier. Liberal politicians like Angela Merkel are under pressure to change their generous immigration policies. And above all, such violence feeds into the right-wing narrative of anti-immigration parties across Europe.
One thing the members of the IS cells who have caused such mayhem in Paris and Brussels recently is that they have long criminal records for involvement in all sorts of crimes ranging from drug peddling to armed robbery. The assumption is that they were radicalised in prison. In any case, they have probably put their criminal contacts to good use by buying arms that are easily available on the underground market.
Much has been made of the lack of intelligence-sharing in Europe. The fact that Belgium is a multilingual state where all too often, intelligence agents speaking one language don’t read reports in another. The problem with intelligence sharing is that spooks guard their sources jealously. All too often, intelligence can reveal where it came from, and this could compromise the source. To suddenly expect spies to break the habit of a lifetime is perhaps asking for too much.
Another factor in this mix is the flow of Western-born Muslim volunteers who have gained combat experience in Syria. Belgium, per capita, has supplied IS with the biggest number of fighters. Many of them have returned, trained and conditioned to kill. And given the large numbers of Muslims living in European cities, it is difficult for intelligence agencies to keep tabs on those suspected of jihadist tendencies.
All this makes life difficult for all the millions of peaceful, law-abiding Muslims who have chosen to make a life in Europe. Increasingly, they are being stopped and searched at random, and generally viewed as suspects. For prickly young men, this is discrimination aimed at Muslims, and serves to further embitter them. Thus, the cycle of suspicion and radicalisation continues.
Well-meaning people like Kerry think that by pounding IS in Syria and Iraq, we will be able to prevent terrorist attacks abroad. This is not what experience dealing with such groups has taught us: Al Qaeda has morphed into a number of regional affiliates who are busy killing on their own bit of turf. Although they have not been as successful as IS in recruiting Muslims in the West, and thus unable to launch terror attacks abroad, they remain potent killing machines.
Clearly, there are no easy answers. But one thing is certain: the increase in terror attacks will serve to fuel the growing Islamophobia in the West that, in turn, will radicalise more young Muslims.
Published in Dawn, March 28th, 2016
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