The horrific attacks that took place in Paris on Friday evening seem to signal a change in direction on the part of the so-called Islamic State (IS) and raise enormous questions regarding how the threat this poses to European security can be dealt with.
Until recently, the core strategy of IS had been to consolidate its position in the territory under its control in Syria and Iraq while encouraging its supporters and adherents in Europe and further afield to conduct ‘lone wolf’ attacks where this was feasible. In this regard, its approach differed significantly from that of al- Qaeda, which has long focused on what it deems to be ‘the far enemy’ – the United States – rather than the ‘near enemy’ - the repressive regimes of the Middle East.
IS, by contrast, has engaged in what might be considered a state-building project in the territory it controls, however repulsive its methods or extreme its interpretation of Islam. The massacre in Paris, following recent bombings in Beirut, the downing of a Russian plane by an IS affiliate in Sinai, as well as earlier bombing atrocities in Turkey and Yemen that claimed scores of lives, may now herald a more global focus on the part of the organisation.
At the very least the assault on Paris raises essential questions regarding how France, and Europe more broadly, can respond to the possibility of further attacks. Within France there are calls already for reform of its intelligence services which are overwhelmed, according to some sources, by the task of monitoring the almost 4,000 individuals deemed to have been ‘radicalised’.
Marginalisation of Muslims
Beyond the immediate need to deal with security concerns within France, there are equally profound challenges in the form of addressing the widespread disaffection and marginalisation of Muslim communities in France and across Europe. IS actively exploits what have been described as “narratives of sectarianism, mistrust and discrimination” and the attacks on Paris were aimed, at least in part, at deepening mistrust between the Muslim population of France and the rest of the country, even if the overwhelming majority of European Muslims have nothing to do with IS or its violent distortions of Islam.
The transnational aspects of the attacks also flag the perennial issue of greater coherence at European Union level on security and terrorism. However, despite repeated recognition by leaders of a threat to Europe and European values, such threats have always been seen through the prism of national security.
While significant reforms to EU counterterrorism structures have been undertaken in recent years tension remains between the insistence by member states that security is their responsibility and the attempts on the part of the EU to develop a greater role in coordination and policymaking.
The need for more co-ordination was made clear in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attacks earlier this year when unco-ordinated anti-terrorist operations took place in a number of European countries, each of which insisted that what they were dealing with was unrelated to events elsewhere.
The need for greater co-operation at EU level is also underpinned by the opportunistic attempts to link the Paris attacks to European efforts to develop a coherent policy to deal with the influx of refugees and asylum seekers from Syria and elsewhere. The purported possession of a Syrian passport by one of the attackers in Paris – which begs all sorts of questions to do with motive and authenticity – has already been seized on by the new right-wing government in Poland as justification for rejecting the quota plan for the sharing of the refugee burden which had only just been agreed by EU leaders.
Yet in recent months IS has uploaded a series of videos online in which those who leave Syria for Europe are decried for choosing the lands of unbelief over the ‘Islamic’ caliphate being built on their doorstep. The association of the attacks with a Syrian passport holder can plausibly be seen as a further attempt on IS’s part to deepen mistrust in Europe.
However the challenge of addressing the security threat in Europe is met, the reality is that IS is first and foremost a creature of political life in the Middle East and Friday’s attacks deepen concerns as to how to deal with IS in its heartland.
Air strikes
The tone of President François Hollande’s speech over the weekend suggests we are likely to see a stepping up of French air strikes on IS positions in Iraq and Syria in the short term. But air power alone is unlikely to dislodge IS from the territory it holds, as the example of Sinjar – recently retaken by Kurdish and Yazidi forces on the ground following sustained US aerial support – clearly discloses.
In turn, this raises the question of how a more effective campaign against IS can be sustained since it is clear the Kurds cannot do it all. There are no fewer than 62 countries in the anti-IS coalition but some of these make for very unlikely bedfellows. Many of the those involved in the struggle against IS, from Iran to Saudi Arabia, Turkey to Russia, have very different understandings both of the level of threat posed by IS and of what might constitute a desirable alternative.
Finally, even if IS was somehow to be overcome in Syria and Iraq, what would remain to be dealt with are the immediate conditions in both countries which made the emergence and rapid advance of IS possible in the first place, including the sectarian character of political life in Iraq since the US-led invasion of 2003 and the dysfunctionality of the Syrian state under the murderous leadership of Bashar al-Assad.
Vincent Durac lectures at the School of Politics and International Relations at UCD