Terror strikes London
The recent outrage in the British capital has sparked fears of a renewed wave of terror in Europe
Compiled by ALMARI WESSELS
THE attack itself lasted just 82 seconds – but its aftermath is still being felt the world over. Is this the start of another wave of terror attacks, people wonder – or is it just a continuation of the horror that started last year?
The image of a grey car ploughing through a crowd of pedestrians on London’s iconic Westminster Bridge is etched into the minds of many. Khalid Masood killed four people, including a policeman he stabbed to death, before he himself was killed.
The 52-year-old’s actions reignited fears that terrorism is spreading its tendrils all over the globe – and in increasingly different ways.
An attack in Brussels, Belgium, in March last year followed a familiar suicide bomb pattern. But in July came the first of a new way of attacking: using a vehicle to mow down crowds. Nice, France, became the scene of horror when a truck ploughed into crowds celebrating Bastille Day, killing 85.
In December came another chilling example: a truck drove into groups of people at a Christmas market in Berlin, Germany, killing 12 and injuring 56.
The actions seem to be following on the directive of Isis strategist Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, who in his final audio message before he fell to US forces in August last year urged followers to be determined. “The smallest act you do in their lands is more beloved to us than the biggest act done here.”
BEFORE his death Al-Adnani, the mastermind behind the November 2015 Paris attacks that claimed the lives of 130 people at the Bataclan concert hall and other venues across the city, remained resolute: Isis won’t wilt away or retreat.
Part of his chilling message gives insight into the lone-wolf vehicle attacks. “The method of such an attack is that a vehicle is plunged at a high speed into a large congregation of kuffar [infidels or nonbelievers], smashing their bodies with the vehicle’s strong outer frame while advancing forward – crushing their heads, torsos and limbs under the vehicle’s wheels and chassis,” Al-Adnani encouraged his followers, adding that an ideal vehicle with which to commit the attack is “double-wheeled, giving victims less of a chance to escape being crushed by the vehicle’s tyres”.
The London attacker may have heeded Isis’ call to hurt nonbelievers “at outdoor festivals, markets, political rallies and pedestrian-clogged streets”, although the connection between the former teacher and Isis remains unclear.
“We still believe that Masood acted alone on the day and there is no information or intelligence to suggest there are further attacks planned,” says deputy assistant British police commissioner Neil Basu in response to Isis claiming Masood as one of its own.
Eleven people were arrested in connection with Masood’s bloody charge, but nine have since been released and his motive hasn’t been uncovered.
“We must all accept that there is a possibility that we will never understand why he did this. That understanding may have died with him,” Basu says.
Some experts believe these rampages are the last salvos of a desperate and dying Isis. The extremist jihadist group first gained prominence as an Al Qaeda offshoot whose reign of terror in Iraq and Syria was characterised by crucifixions, amputations, suicide bombings, beheadings and mass exterminations.
But these days it’s a shadow of the victorious army that seized Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, in June 2014.
“It [Isis] is no longer able to sell itself as the same organisation it was selling itself as in 2014 and 2015, and that’s because its insurgency is dwindling in Iraq and Syria. And it’s spending a lot more time focusing on warfare,” explains Charlie Winter, an analyst at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR) in London. He adds that the Westminster attack could be done hastily as sophisticated preparation wasn’t needed.
“It [Isis] needs to find some way to derive momentum. It needs to prove that it is credible, relevant, important, legiti- mate and able to be a potent menace to the rest of the world.”
SINCE its glory days following the successful siege of Mosul in mid-2014, Isis has lost a reported 10 000 fighters and the Iraqi army’s efforts to block its access to lucrative oil fields have reaped rewards – its revenue took a dive from up to $1,9 billion (then more than R25,6 billion) annually to just $870 million (then R11,7 billion) last year.
The porous Turkish border has also been strengthened to limit jihadists’ movements between Syria and Europe, and increased security measures have thwarted assailants – a French resident was recently arrested after he tried to drive a car over pedestrians in Antwerp, Belgium.
Surveillance is also becoming more sophisticated. US and British officials recently banned tablets and laptops on flights entering their countries after they received intelligence Isis is developing bombs that can be smuggled onto airplanes in electronic devices.
“We’ll kill as many Isis [ fighters] as we can in the Mosul and Raqqa battles,” is how Ashton Carter, the former US secretary of defence, explained America’s policy to kill all Isis’ jihadists to The New Yorker. “If they try to get out of town, we’ll try to kill them. If they go somewhere else, then we’ll continue to destroy them. So they may fight to the death and they may try to survive, but we’ll be after them in either case.
“We’re going to destroy the idea that there is an Islamic State. They’ll see that, before their eyes. It’s not a place for foreign fighters because there’s no place to go. There’ll be no training there. There’ll be no welcome there.
“And that magnetism that two years ago brought many foreign fighters – there’ll be no magnet left.”
At the height of Isis’ crusade 2 000 fighters crossed the border between Turkey and Syria monthly, but today only 50 soldiers make the pilgrimage.
It’s also lost about 45 percent of its territory in Syria and 20 percent in Iraq since August 2014.
But Isis won’t go down without a fight, experts warn. The danger lurking in its unorthodox methods remains. For many European governments, writes Martin Chulov in The Guardian, its danger has “metastasised into a global threat that a loss of land won’t mitigate”.
Several hundred other Isis fighters returned to Europe where they’re awaiting instructions from their bosses in Syria and Iraq. “They are an even more potent threat than they were a year ago,” a Western diplomat told Chulov.
Isis may have shrunk, but as the London strike that claimed the lives of Aysha Frade (43), Keith Palmer (48), Kurt Cochran (54) and Leslie Rhodes (75) proved, they’re not backing down.
In the words of an Isis official, “They’ve made plans for all of this. They’re investing a lot in sending their people to Europe, and it won’t be over soon. You’ve seen them throughout their history. Whenever they’re being beaten, they lay low.
“They will come back. They still have their ideology.”