Terrorism is on Your Doorstep

After reading The Australian, today and The Daily Telegraph Yesterday, thought I would piece together some snippets that have already received blessings of not being classified information from a draft unedited book I am writing titled 'Terrorism is on Your Doorstep'. It does affect many facets of our life to include insurance and health.

Terrorism- the use of violence or threat of violence by sub national entities to advance political, religious or ideological agenda-has evolved over time both in tactics and actors involved. By carefully choosing high profile political, economic, symbolic and infrastructure targets, terrorism has gained prominence that it previously had failed to attract. Violence, real or perceived against non-military persons and installations capitalizes on the psychological effects of fear on its victims to coerce them to act in a certain way to the advantage of the terrorist.

The events of 9/11 happening in the heart of the United States brought to light the extent to which countries-previously thought to be secure-were vulnerable to acts of terrorism. Since 2001, the policies surrounding terrorism and counter terrorism have been changing in USA and Europe that included stringent immigration rules and global cooperation in terror monitoring and surveillance. However since the ‘war on terror’ advanced by president Bush administration as a response to the 9/11 attack, there has been a steady rise in terrorist activities largely in North Africa and the Middle East. According to Global Terrorism Database, there was a sustained increase in acts of terrorism between 2001 and 2016 as a consequence of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and recently in Syria. While majority of these activities happened in the Middle East, terrorists and terrorist groups are turning their attention from targeting westerns working in the Middle East and have instead embarked on exporting terror abroad. Europe, USA and Australia have endured the most of this tactical shift in varied measures with Europe taking the largest share. Several questions thus surface, first, why is there an increase in terrorism targeting USA and its allies and second who are these terrorists causing global chaos?

ISIS and Al Qaeda are the two major terrorist organizations listed by US department of state that have had activities in Europe and USA. The fact that these two organizations are headquartered in Syria and Pakistan respectively with most of their followers coming from the Middle East explains the reason why Arabs in western countries are always subject to suspicion on terrorism grounds which brings about the issue of racial profiling which I will address later. The 1994 United Nations Human Development Report focusing on human security cited ‘excessive immigration’ as a leading precursor to terrorism a fact that is true today as it was more than two decades ago. With the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the disintegration of social fabric in Syria there has been an influx of refugees especially in Europe with up to a million estimated to enter the continent illegally. While every country has an obligation in the international law to grant asylum to refugees fleeing violence in their home country, it presents a catch 22 situation when a country tries to strike a balance between taking in the refugees and maintaining internal security within its borders.

The debate about terrorists infiltrating international boarders into Europe, USA and Australia has drawn mixed and diametrically opposing opinions across countries and leaders all over the world. The German Chancellor Angela Merkel for instance has faced mounting criticism from anti-immigrant groups and from her own party members for adopting an open border policy that saw about a million refugees settle in Germany in late 2015. Her humanitarian decision probably arising from a sense of moral responsibility on her part may have increased Europe’s’ vulnerability to terrorism since there were no structures to sift those refugees with genuine humanitarian needs and those of terrorist inclinations.

Were the fears of the anti-immigrant groups justified? One may ask. While there is no clear answer to this question, revisiting terrorist attacks in Europe may shed some light on this issue and permit us to extrapolate into USA and Australia. A list of recent attacks in Europe include Berlin Christmas attack in Germany, Nice truck attack in France, , January and November 2015 attacks in France and Brussels bombing in Belgium. Hungarian intelligence revealed that these attacks had elements of jihadists who gained access to Europe from Middle East and North Africa posing as refugees. Perhaps such revelations could have been the basis upon which US President Donald Trump surprised the world when he banned citizens from seven Islamic states from entering USA. Even though this policy change was reversed by the court, it exemplifies some radical thinking among realist political figures that could be effected in an attempt to prevent terrorists from infiltrating international borders. Idealists on the other hand argue that such blanket policy changes are ill informed and only succeed in radicalizing Muslim fundamentalists further. Such blanket condemnation, even though some may argue as a necessary evil, contravenes human rights as enshrined in the universal declaration of human rights. It further promotes overt racial profiling which consequently breeds homophobic tendencies against citizens of Arab descent.

While Europe may be vulnerable to terrorism due to its close proximity to fragile and war torn countries in the Middle East and existence of well-established refugee and arms smuggling routes in the Mediterranean Sea, USA and Australia have a geographical advantage. Geographical advantage in the sense that these two continents are far removed from volatile countries, have well patrolled borders and therefore quite difficult to gain entry into. However, with the terrorists choosing to focus on the internet to advance their agenda across the globe this geographical advantage is fading fast. ‘Lone wolves attacks’ a term used to refer to individuals acting on their own to advance the agenda of a terrorist organization have been on the rise. Through propaganda materials readily available on the internet, ISIS has succeeded in inspiring youths in foreign countries to carry out attacks on their behalf. Boston marathon attack in USA, 2016 Minot stabbing attack, Fairfield’s Raids and 2014 Sydney hostage Crisis are such examples. With the increase in small arms proliferation and availability of materials and technical knowhow to assemble homemade improvised explosive devises, it does not require a highly trained person to evolve into an armed terrorist.

Before I conclude, I would like to point out a theory that often comes up among political commentators and security analysts regarding jihadists groups in the Middle East. Since the US invasion of Iraq- looking for weapons of mass destruction that they didn’t find- there has been constant foreign occupation in Middle East, which the Muslim community sees as modern day imperialism and a serious breach of sovereignty that curtails the principle of self-determination. Jihadists therefore feel they have a duty to defend their country albeit through unorthodox means by attacking every allied member state that has its troops on their soil. By militarily intervening in the Middle East a county, by default, courts terror and places its citizens at a greater risk of terrorism.

Selfish political and economic interests in USA and Europe have also played a major part in breeding grounds for terrorism. Hiding behind a pro-democracy smoke screen, western leaders have been on the fore front in ousting ‘dictators’ in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East with little regard for social and leadership structures in these countries. After the capture and execution of Colonel Gaddafi, a renowned critic of USA and Europe, it was thought that Libya and the northern hemisphere would be safer without him but the contrary has happened. With French supplied military grade weapons on the hands of anti-government militias, Libya has degenerated into anarchy providing a safe haven for terrorists groups and an easy route into Europe. It is therefore not a far-fetched theory to suggest that the terrorists wreaking havoc in Europe may have fought on the same side with NATO military in Libya.

In conclusion one may ask, ‘do stringent immigration policies help in making countries safer?’ while such policies might work for a while, on their own, they cannot succeed.

While we may patrol borders, it remains difficult to monitor the internet and social media that has emerged as a tool of choice for today's terrorists. On the internet, terrorists can reach out to a larger audience, plan better coordinated attacks and increase psychological impact of their attacks by posting images and videos of their victims. The internet is a platform from which the terrorist groups prey on young youths, distort their minds and mold them into lone wolves.

Before this radicalized youths who have probably never set foot beyond national borders come knocking on our doors, a question does surface, do we have a plan to counter lone wolf terrorism?