A SPATE of attacks over the past few days has left Europe reeling. Starting with the Bastille Day rampage in Nice in which a French resident of Tunisian extraction drove a 19-tonne truck into a crowd killing more than 80 people, to a knife attack in Germany that left several injured on board a train, to the Munich shooting on Friday in which at least nine people died, the nightmare has been unending. Pending further investigations, it appears that in at least two of the cases there were no accomplices. The train attack was carried out by a teenaged Afghan migrant who had apparently no links to the dreaded IS that often claims, or is accused of inspiring, such attacks. Again, in the latest attack on Friday, the perpetrator, a German-Iranian teenager, has not been linked to IS, though he might have been inspired by Norwegian mass killer Anders Breivik. The suspect was reportedly receiving psychiatric care. The attacks present a new security dilemma for Europe: how to prevent lone-wolf attacks.

In today’s insecure, terror-afflicted world, it is difficult to come up with a calibrated response to such attacks. What is clear is that in many of them the perpetrators suffered from mental and personality disorders; militancy was perhaps the conduit for their pent-up rage. For example, the Nice attacker, whose links to terrorist groups have yet to be established, was not religious and had behavioural problems. Similarly, some of those involved in the earlier Brussels attacks — though these were apparently coordinated — were petty criminals and didn’t fit the usual jihadist profile. Deeper studies — involving European governments, academics and law-enforcement specialists — are needed to uncover why these individuals ‘snap’. Is it merely the escape or ‘redemption’ from a life of ‘sin’ that IS offers, or is it their existence on the margins of European society that causes them to carry out unconscionable acts of violence? Perhaps it is a mix. Whether these people were radicalised by militant Islamist ideology, or pushed over the edge due to psychological problems stemming from their backgrounds — Europeans of Islamic heritage or migrants from Muslim countries — all Muslims in Europe will be tarred with the same brush. These acts will fuel Islamophobia and anti-migrant sentiments. Europe must strike a balance between solid counterterrorism efforts, and ensuring that entire communities are not ostracised, and that those fleeing war and persecution are still able to find refuge.

Published in Dawn, July 24th, 2016