Europe open to jihadi attack, analysts say
LISBON, Portugal — In the 20 years since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the U.S., homegrown extremists, geography and weaknesses in counterterrorism strategies have combined to turn Europe into a prime target for jihadis bent on hurting the West.
Europe watched as the 9/11 attacks unfolded across the Atlantic. Life on their continent, too, would be transformed by those events, with hundreds of people killed and thousands injured at the hands of Islamic extremists in the following years.
Since 9/11, Europe has witnessed many more jihadi attacks on its soil than the U.S. — for a variety of reasons, analysts say.
Over the past decade or so, “what we’ve seen in Western Europe is an unprecedented jihadist mobilization,” said Fernando Reinares, director of the program on violent radicalization and global terrorism at the Elcano Royal Institute in Madrid.
Evidence of that, he said, are not only the bombings, vehicle rammings and stabbings that have tormented Western Europe in recent times, but also the tens of thousands of European Muslims who felt compelled to join insurgent terrorist groups during recent wars in Syria and Iraq.
Western Europe has struggled to integrate significant Muslim populations into mainstream society. Many Muslims are disadvantaged and feel disenfranchised, and some harbor grievances against the countries where they live.
“There is a sense of alienation and a sense of frustration [that] jihadists are often latching onto,” said Peter Neumann, a professor of security studies at King’s College London.
“That’s not the same in the United States,” said Neumann, the principal adviser on security policy for German chancellor candidate Armin Laschet. “American Muslims are much less hostile toward their own country than European Muslims, and they’re much better integrated.”
As it turned out, 2001 was a watershed year for jihadi terror activity in the U.S. and Europe. At the turn of the century, the U.S. “was the big prize for al-Qaida, not Europe,” said Olivier Guitta, managing director of GlobalStrat, an international security and risk consultancy firm in London.
But once the U.S. toughened its security after 9/11, he said, al-Qaida looked for easier targets. In Europe, it took an opportunistic approach, recruiting networks of supporters in Muslim communities to stage spectacular attacks.
That strategy brought some grim milestones for Europe. In 2004, train bombings in Madrid killed 193 people and injured more than 2,000. A year later, London bombings, sometimes referred to as 7/7, featuring coordinated suicide attacks targeting the public transport system that killed 52 people and injured more than 700.
Later, the Islamic State became the chief menace. It claimed responsibility for a string of notorious attacks, including one in Paris in 2015 that killed 130 people and wounded hundreds — France’s deadliest violence since World War II. In 2016, nail bombs went off in Brussels, killing 32 people and injuring more than 300. Later the same year, a truck drove into crowds in Nice, France, killing 86 people and injuring 434.
Some critics have blamed that violence on weak links in the continent’s defenses. Intelligence capabilities differ widely among the European Union’s 27 member countries.
Guitta of GlobalStrat said, however, that counterterrorism cooperation among EU countries has improved considerably.
That may prove precious. Reinares of Spain’s Elcano Royal Institute predicts that al-Qaida and the Islamic State, rivalling for prominence, “will compete to stage large attacks in the West.” And Europe must be on guard because it is an easier target than North America or Australia, he told an online conference Thursday.