Strategy-deficient West

RADICAL ISLAM'S CHALLENGE

Just over a month after the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris, a hail of bullets hit the Krudttoenden café in Copenhagen last week as it hosted a seminar called “Art, blasphemy and the freedom of expression”.

Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks – who has stoked controversy by drawing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad as a dog – is thought to have been the main target of El-Hussein's initial shooting, which took place Saturday last at a Copenhagen cafe. Finn Noergaard, a documentary film-maker was killed during that attack. Hours later, gunman Omar el-Hussein turned his weapons on Copenhagen's main synagogue, killing a voluntary security guard as he guarded the building during a Bar Mitzvah ceremony.

This comes after 17 people were killed by three Islamist terrorists in the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine and at a supermarket in Paris last month. Two of the attackers then went on the run, sparking a lengthy manhunt that ended when they were cornered and shot dead.  French ambassador to Denmark François Zimeray, who was also present, said on Twitter shortly afterwards that he was “still alive in the room”.

The Danish intelligence service has confirmed that it had been alerted last year that the gunman believed to be responsible for deadly attacks on a synagogue and free-speech event in Copenhagen was at risk of being radicalised. Details about gunman Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein have been emerging, including that he spent time in prison and was affiliated with gangs. While incarcerated, he drew the attention of authorities when he said he wanted to travel to Syria to fight with the Islamic State.

Danish authorities are also now suggesting that Hussein was part of a network – a criminal gang called the Brothas that has traditionally traded in drugs and theft but whose members have lately been lured by radical Islam.

Tens of thousands of people rallied in Copenhagen after the weekend shootings in Denmark, with many vowing to defend free speech in the face of threats, echoing a similar moment a decade ago when a newspaper stirred outrage with its caricatures of the Prophet.

At a time of heightened sensitivities in the region, Europe’s terrorism response is evolving as the threat from home-grown radicals is magnifying. While the French authorities are starting to weigh the value of surveillance, in Sweden, police are now out in full force, guarding possible terrorist targets with automatic weapons and in the last few days have also carried out an operation that netted four men described as financiers for the Islamic State.

Ill-prepared and seemingly surprised at the proliferation of potential threats, entire Europe is now confronting difficult trade-offs in deciding how and whether to monitor hundreds or thousands of their citizens who are travelling in and out of conflict zones, otherwise making contact with radicals or being inspired by assaults like the one on Charlie Hebdo.

French authorities have identified prison as a catalyst for radicalism. Two of the three gunmen responsible for the Paris attacks spent time in French prisons, coming into contact with jihadist militants who turned the men’s previously tepid faith in Islam into radical zealotry. Yet, there is no easy way out here for the region as a whole.

The Obama administration too is revamping its effort to counter the Islamic State’s propaganda machine, acknowledging that the terrorist group has been far more effective in attracting new recruits, financing and global notoriety than the United States and its allies have been in thwarting it.

Taking Libya, a tough task

The terror group moved across Iraq and Syria with ease. But after drawing heat for beheading Egyptians, the path to take Libya is much more difficult. The Islamic State’s success in Iraq and Syria was fuelled in part by its control of some of the region’s richest oil fields, but the group will be hard-pressed to turn Libya’s oil reserves into a steady source of financing. But that is no consolation for a strategy-deficient West.

Officials from some 60 nations are in Washington, DC this week for President Barack Obama’s long-postponed three-day summit on combating violent extremism. Ahead of the meeting, the key players in Obama’s administration could not get on the same page.

Some had even taken issue with the conference name arguing that the only kind of extremism that threatens America grows out of radical strains of Islam. However, if the debate over how much to focus on Islam were the only hurdle for this White House, the summit would be a manageable affair. But the internal politics of the summit have been as heated as the external politics. And it hasn’t helped that at least State Department has been kept away from the management of the event till early January.

Obama’s response to the turmoil in West Asia is also evolving. One key to the White House strategy against the Islamic State is to train moderate Syrian rebels to fight the group. The US has decided to provide pickup trucks equipped with machine guns and radios for calling in US airstrikes to some moderate Syrian rebels. But the scope of any bombing hasn’t been worked out—a reflection of the complexities of the battlefield in Syria.

It is far from clear if the West can come up with a coherent, united strategy to tackle the rising tide of radicalism in West Asia which is upending the social harmony in western societies. At the moment, there is no unity in sight and it looks like a long road ahead.

(The writer is Professor of International Relations, King's College, London)