Murderers are returning to the streets of Europe, but perhaps they haven’t left yet. They were just waiting for a fresh start, something that would rekindle their desire to kill after witnessing the Islamic State’s territorial defeat. The copies of the Koran burned in Sweden, the resurgence of tensions and the war in Gaza were the triggers. The constant appeals of preachers, ideologies and factions convinced them that the time had come to bring out knives and guns to hunt defenseless prey.
The Brussels attack is alarming and reminiscent of other bloody times. The shooter – according to initial information – used a rifle, advanced into the city center and carried out a real attack. And he explained it by releasing a video dedicated to the Islamic State. An act other than that of the individual holding a blade, as in the case of the high school teacher murdered in France by an extremist of Chechen origin. The criminal raid is similar to the attack on May 25, 2014, also in the Belgian capital. Then a French terrorist, Mehdi Nemmouche, carried out a massacre at the Jewish Museum in which Kalashnikov volleys left four people dead. The murderer was caught six days later in Marseille, and the investigation will document connections to the groups operating in Syria and Iraq.
It was the beginning of the death campaign that IS (and its variants) carried out in the following years with complex operations in the Bataclan in Paris, again in Brussels and in many other capitals. But also the massacres that were carried out with ramming vehicles in Nice, Berlin and Stockholm, a method invented by Al-Qaeda and adopted by many imitators.
For now, the threat presents itself in familiar forms. The first is played by lone wolves, inspired elements influenced by the terrible images spread by thousands of media channels, ready to join a “caravan” of cutthroats. They are like “sleeping pills”, sometimes imbued with blind fundamentalism, radicalizing themselves within their own four walls, visiting certain mosques or occult instigators. One friend can convince her to take the plunge, another can explain how. Informal leaders, accomplices, banks. They often have previous convictions for common crimes, they are used to violence, they know that prison is a training ground for extremism.
They are not all the same. There are those who have a superficial “political-religious” conscience. They may even be far from real militancy, but are fascinated by it after watching and reading dramatic news about Muslims. Never forget that the person responsible for the massacre in Nice, when the truck was thrown onto the Promenade des Anglais, was a debaucher, an animal to his family, a dirty figure transformed into a destructive machine. They are the protagonists of “influence terrorism” because they are “infected” by the climate of widespread hatred and opposition. Some have psychological problems, unstable characters and profiles that are considered “chaotic” because they mix personal drives and faction slogans.
The second danger is fire groups, microcells, elements capable of handling weapons of war and explosives. They can come from outside, but it is “easier” for them to be already in the West. There is no shortage of conflict veterans who built bonds before leaving for the Middle East and reactivated them upon their return.
Next to them are “brothers” who grew up in difficult areas and are active in “bubbles of extremism”: They were not in the countries of the caliphate, but still found a way to get involved from afar. The Islamic State has shown the way, simply, without excessive rituals: a film, the pledge of allegiance, the use of all available means. The gun, the cleaver, the car, even a stone, as spokesman Abu Mohammed al Adnani suggested.
Al-Qaeda has re-entered the fight and has quickly become involved in propaganda, calling for battle and attacking “the Jews” around the world. Overtaken by ISIS rivals, it could find room for an attack by exploiting the Palestinian cause and any pretext.