European terror threats many, varied
LONDON — The military-style attack in Paris has made clear that Europe faces an evolving, ever-more complex terror threat no longer dominated by a few big players.
It’s not just al-Qaida, or Islamic State. It’s not just the disciples of some fiery, hate-filled preachers.
Instead, security experts say, it’s now an Internet-driven, generalized rage against Western society that can burst into the open at any time — with a slaughter in Paris, an attack on a Jewish Museum in Belgium, or the slaying of a soldier in the streets of London.
This evolving hydra-headed beast bedevils security chiefs, who have to deal not only with al-Qaida planners looking for another 9/11-style hit but also with, as in Paris, well-trained, well-armed killers intent on avenging perceived insults to their religion by gunning down journalists.
In a rare public speech, Andrew Parker, director of the domestic British security service MI5, said Thursday that thwarting terrorist attacks has become more difficult as the threat becomes more diffuse. It is harder, he said, for agents to disrupt plans of small groups or “lone wolves” who act spontaneously.
“We believe that since October 2013 there have been more than 20 terrorist plots either directed or provoked by extremist groups,” he said, citing deadly attacks in Europe, Canada and Australia. He said security services have stopped three potentially lethal terrorist plots inside Britain alone in recent months.
“The number of crude but potentially deadly plots has gone up,” he said, warning that small-scale plots carried out by volatile individuals are “inherently harder for intelligence agencies to detect.”
The individuals are not part of disciplined, sophisticated networks, he said, and often act with little or no warning.
Already some 600 Britons have gone to Syria to join extremists there, with most embracing Islamic State, Parker said. Some 550 Germans have done the same, with about 180 known to have returned, including a hard core of about 30 who are judged to be extremely dangerous, according to German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere. About 1,200 French citizens have left for Syria, including about 400 still in the war zone and 200 on their way, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said last month.
Parker said they have learned how to hate and how to kill.
Concentrating solely on these volatile individuals wouldn’t work, he said, because at the same time rival al-Qaida and Islamic State groups inside Syria are trying to orchestrate broader attacks in Britain and Western Europe.
Open societies everywhere have difficulty protecting against terrorism, whose perpetrators are aided by the very freedoms and openness that they often despise. But in Europe, several factors further complicate the situation.
The main one is a large Muslim population in many countries — France first among them, but also Belgium, Sweden, Germany, Britain, and even Spain and Italy. The size of these communities enables the radicals among them to better hide.
The issue is compounded by the fact — only recently the source of angst in Europe — that many immigrants are not well-assimilated into Western society. While most immigrants are law-abiding and nonhostile, it seems that many have not absorbed its liberal values, including freedom of expression up to and including satire of religious figures. This creates an atmosphere in which radicalism can survive and sometimes thrive.
Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism specialist, said a new generation of Muslim youths has grown up in Europe’s cities and has to a degree embraced the al-Qaida view that the West is at war with Islam.
