TERROR ATTACKS IN EUROPE: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

The uncertainty of the danger belongs

to the essence of terrorism

-Jurgen Habermas

Las Ramblas – the tourist-friendly district in Barcelona, famous for its cafes, restaurants and nightlife, was shrouded in horror on the afternoon of 17th August.

Often described as the Times Square of Barcelona, the usually buzzing promenade had turned into a graveyard. A van had mounted the pavement and gone on a killing spree.

Ploughing through crowds, the vehicle struck down several pedestrians, killing 13 while injuring 130. Not an accident, but a planned act of gruesome carnage.

The driver and perpetrator, 22 year old Younes Abouyaaqoub, was gunned down by police in Subirats four days later.

Co-conspirators, who had caused similar mayhem in Cambrils, were killed by the police earlier. But not before they managed to kill 1 and injure 6.

Thousands of residents took to the streets of Barcelona a week later, displaying banners of “NO TINC POR” (I’m not afraid). Tributes poured in, hundreds of bouquets were offered in memory the departed.

Barcelona is not used to such sombre atmosphere.

The last time a terror attack was planned in the city was in 2008. The CNI had swooped in to make a timely intervention, arresting over a dozen suspects.

Nine years later though, there was no such luck.

This was the seventh major terror incident in Europe this year.

As intelligence agencies struggle to prevent such heinous acts, Europe continues to battle the “new normal” of Islamic terrorism.

It seems like Sadiq Khan was right when he suggested that the threat of a terror attack was now “part and parcel” of living in a big city.

September 11 was terrible,

but if one goes back over the history of the IRA,

what happened to the Americans wasn’t that terrible

Doris Lessing

Europe is no stranger to terrorism. From the blowing up of a plane over Lockerbie to the killing of athletes in Munich – the continent has seen it all.

In fact, from 1970 to the early 90s, separatist movements in Britain, Spain and Italy saw the death of hundreds.

In the United Kingdom, for instance, the ethno-nationalist movement called The Troubles saw groups like the Provisional Irish Republican Army and the Ulster Volunteer Force targeting Protestants via bombings.

Similarly, the Euskadi Ta Askatasuna was engaged in bombings and kidnappings in parts of Spain and France.

Their goal was to achieve political autonomy for the Basque region. The separatist group killed more than 800 people before disbanding.

Neo-fascist groups likes Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari, who carried out the 1980 Bologna massacre, were actively engaged in acts of terror during the Anni di piombo.

However, after late 90s, the number of terror incidents saw a fall. Western Europe, in particular, experienced some respite for almost a decade.

It was Eastern Europe’s turn to be the victims.

As Gorbachev’s Soviet disintegrated, incidents of terror became commonplace in Eastern Europe.

Russians suffered numerous attacks at the hands of Chechen terrorists while separatist groups like the Kosovo Liberation Army continued to massacre people in Serbia and Yugoslavia.

The primordial soup of Jihadi terror

To be fair, more sinister forces had already started accumulating in the tribal regions of Afghanistan.

The Soviet-Afghan war contributed heavily to the rise of several Islamic terror groups. With active support from the CIA, the Mujahideen infested mountains of Afghanistan became the primordial soup for several present day terror organizations, most notably the Al Qaeda.

The decade long conflict has had severe implications for global terrorism. And Europe was not going to have a let-off.

Prior to the advent of global Islamic terrorism, the nature of terrorism in Europe was more localised in nature.

Violent campaigns like those by the ETA or the IRA were premised upon separatism. Gaining regional freedom or political autonomy from incumbent regimes were the primary motives.

However, the terror groups that gained prominence in the wake of the Soviet-Afghan war were a new breed.

Armed with a perverse and yet somehow appealing ideology of Salafi-Jihadism, these groups waged a relentless war against the Middle East and Western governments.

The immediate brunt fell on American citizens, as Jihadists attacked US troops in Yemen. Though largely unsuccessful, these attacks were followed by the deadly bombings of the World Trade Centre in 1993 and US Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.

Europe didn’t appear in the Jihadist’s crosshairs until NATO’s involvement in the American invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11.

The United States had invaded Afghanistan in 2001 with the lone support of Canada and the United Kingdom initially.

However, by 2003, 43 member countries of the NATO had joined the coalition. This was believed to be the trigger point for the Jihadists.

Europe’s rendezvous with contemporary Islamic terror

A year later in 2004, Europe had its first rendezvous with contemporary Islamic terrorism, as Al Qaeda reared its ugly head in Madrid.

As thousands of commuters in the Spanish capital made their way to work on the morning of 11th March, ten powerful explosives went off in four trains. These explosions claimed 191 lives, the deadliest terror attack in Spain and Europe.

The blasts took place 3 days before the general elections, which led many to believe this to be the handiwork of ETA. However, few days later Spanish police recovered a tape from a mosque in Madrid, which showed an Al Qaeda operative claiming responsibility for the attacks.

A year later, London suffered similar fate. Four suicide bombers, all of them citizens of the United Kingdom, detonated their vests inside three underground trains and a double-decker bus.

52 people were killed and over 700 people were injured.

Though none of the attackers were believed to have had direct links, confession tapes suggest all of them pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda prior to the attacks.

Eastern Europe wasn’t spared too. In November 2003, truck bombs exploded in various parts of Istanbul, killing 57 civilians.

Attacks weren’t just carried out on European soil. Europeans in other parts of the world were systematically targeted too.

In October 2002, a Jemaah Islamiyah operative detonated his suicide vest inside a popular nightclub in Bali. As people rushed out of the pub, a car bomb was detonated outside to maximize casualties.

202 people died, 54 of them Europeans. The terrorists had deliberately chosen a spot that was popular with Western tourists.

Similar attacks targeting Westerners were also carried out in Casablanca and Jakarta.

Weakening of Al Qaeda

But with the coalition forces working overtime in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, the number of major incidents saw a fall both in Europe and the US.

Relentless operations led to the capture of key figures like Abu Faraj al-Liby and Abd al-hadi al-Iraqi.

Further, drone strikes on senior Al Qaeda leaders like Abu Hamza Rabia, came as a huge blow to the terror organization.

Though Jihadists continued targeting Europe, failed bombing attempts at Exeter and the Glasgow Airport proved former efficiency was missing. Europe, though on high alert, enjoyed a short hiatus from terror attacks.

Global warming is not a threat.

It’s not a real threat. It’s not a credible threat.

It’s not an imminent threat. ISIS is.

Eric Bolling

On the night of 1st May, 2011, special force operatives from US Navy SEAL Team Six raided a compound in Abbottabad, a town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. 15 minutes later, the world’s most wanted terrorist Osama Bin Laden was dead.

The United States had avenged 9/11. With US troops still present in Afghanistan and Iraq, many thought this would be the end of global Islamic terrorism.

One couldn’t be more wrong.

More extremist groups have surfaced since then, threatening global peace. Violence and barbarity have increased manifold.

Iraq – a cesspool of Salafi-Jihadism

Prominent terror groups that came up post 9/11 have their origins in Operation Iraqi Freedom. As US forces invaded Iraq, informed with flawed intelligence inputs about presence of WMDs, several foreign fighters converged to the country to fight the Americans.

One such Jihadist from Jordan, named Abu Musab al-Zarkawi, became the first Emir of Al-Qaeda-in-Iraq, an affiliate of Al Qaeda.

Zarkawi executed several attacks against Westerners as well as Shias, including beheading a few Americans himself.

After he was killed in a US air strike, his followers broke off from Al Qaeda and founded a new outfit – the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

Three years later, a former US detainee by the name of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, took the reins of ISIS. Since then, the group has killed thousands in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and beyond.

Though an offshoot of Al Qaeda, ISIS’s goals are quite different. With the Takfiri doctrine deep-rooted in its DNA, ISIS seeks to eliminate those who don’t adhere to the Sharia. Further, the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate through global Jihad remains their primary objective.

Europe suffers again – this time at the hands of ISIS

With the rise of ISIS, Europe was once again a target.

The first major ISIS attack in Europe shook the world. In November 2015, terrorists opened fire in several crowded locations in Paris, including the fully packed Bataclan Theatre.

Additionally, suicide bombers blew themselves up outside the Stade de France, which was hosting a football match between France and Germany with President Francois Hollande in attendance.

The attacks resulted in the death of 130 people, the deadliest attack ever on French soil. Many described the incident as an attack on the Western way of life itself.

And this was just eight months after the Charlie Hebdo shooting, where two French citizens of Algerian origin shot dead 12 staff members of the controversial magazine. The act was regarded as an act of revenge for the caricature of Prophet Mohammed by the magazine in 2011. The attackers were believed to be part of the al-Qaeda based in Yemen.

A different approach

ISIS was slowly replacing Al Qaeda as the hegemons of global terror. And their procedures were more refined too.

With immensely efficient online propaganda, ISIS has been able to attract thousands of foreign fighters. Offers of lucrative sums of money , glorification of ‘martyrs’ and promise of utopian life under Islamic Sharia law are some of the reasons why youths have flocked to Syria to fight for the creation of the Caliphate.

Massive online propaganda has also contributed to the rise of lone wolf attacks both in Europe and elsewhere. Brainwashed by gory images of attacks and deliberate misinterpretations of holy scriptures, numerous people have taken to attacking ‘non-believers’ in their vicinity.

The methods of terrorism have undergone massive change too.

Even with no training, or without possessing weapons or explosives, lone wolf attackers have been able to kill innocents by the numbers.

Mohamed Lahouaeij-Bouhlel, for instance, drove a cargo truck through unsuspecting crowds on Bastille Day in Nice, killing 86 people. Though terror links couldn’t be substantiated, investigations suggest Bouhlel was radicalised online.

Similar attacks took place in London this year, as radicals drove a truck through crowds at the London Bridge, before stabbing people with knives in the Borough Market.

Such attackers often have little or no prior connections to known terror outfits, which makes it tougher for intelligence agencies to track them down.

As coalition forces push back the ISIS in Iraq and Syria, lone wolf attacks are on the rise. With the core of the terror group suffering huge blows in the Middle East, increased radicalisation of alienated Muslims around the world keeps the war waging.

We know that terrorism is going to happen

in the future, and we need to be prepared for it.

John Fleming

As Europe continues to resist the normalization of Islamic terrorism, current security capabilities point to an uncertain future.

With more than a million refugees entering the European Union in the last three years, present mechanisms have proved limited in proper identification of asylum seekers and migrants. Yet, the risk of ‘wolves hiding among sheep’ is ever-present.

In fact, according to Hungarian security officials, masterminds of Paris and Brussels attacks had entered EU through the Balkan route, posing as refugees.

A shift of methods too has seen gathering intelligence become more difficult. Illegal procurement of weapons and explosives often leaves behind money trails, which are easier to track.

However, as terrorists opt for low-tech high impact methods like vehicle ramming, getting a whiff of impending attacks has gotten more difficult.

Moreover hate crimes against refugees have seen an alarming rise. Numbers cited by the German police show that refugees and asylum seekers in the country are subject to almost 10 attacks per day.

In France, hate crimes against Muslims rose by more than 200% in 2015. Even London recorded more than 800 Islamophobic attacks between July 2014 and July 2015.

Jihadi terror has been the central reason for rising Islamophobia. For instance, Islamophobic attacks increased by 500% in Greater Manchester after suicide bombers killed 22 people at Ariana Grande’s concert in May.

As rising hate crimes catalyze radicalisation, recruitment by terror groups only becomes easier. Such radicals often target Westerners out of vengeance.

This self perpetuating vicious circle of violence only puts Europe at greater risk.

Authorities need to view hate crimes as a real contributing factor towards radicalisation. Moreover, issues like economic underperformance of the Muslim youth have to be put right.

With ISIS on the brink of loss owing to operations by US led coalition, Kurdish and Russian forces, it is highly likely that a major dispersal of terrorists will take place from strongholds of Iraq, Syria and other neighbouring regions.

Without proper surveillance or identification mechanisms, chances of fanatics reaching European countries remain quite high.

Though ISIS is fast losing ground in Iraq and Syria, history teaches us that power vacuums never remain unattended for long.

There’s no reason to believe that terror outfits based in Africa will not consider a go at Europe. After all, groups like Boko Haram and Ansar al-Sharia propagate the same ideology of Salafi-Jihadism. Intel suggests even Al Qaeda is said to regrouping in Libya.

Europe must therefore pull up its socks, or else the ‘new normal’ will take over.