A global war against terrorism
A number of extremely horrendous terrorist attacks have deeply shaken the world. A terrible slaughter has been committed in Tunisia at a tourist resort in Souss where almost 40 people, mostly retired elderly British tourists, have been murdered in cold blood by a gunman, using an AK-47 and hand grenades. Almost simultaneously, in France a terrible murder happened, where a petty worker seemingly having no problems with his job drove a truck into high-pressure gas tanks having previously taken his boss hostage, killing him in his office, beheading him and placing the head at the middle of the road in front of the working place. The attacks were so brutal, so full of hatred and so difficult to support with a common accord, the world's press and media did not show any picture of the victims. However, this was a very clear demonstration that the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) is not a terrorist organization whose efficiency was restricted to the desert regions of both Iraq and Syria.
ISIS is perfectly capable to wage war at home, meaning in the Sunni-populated regions of both Iraq and Syria, in a very conventional way, with a tactical experience no terror organization has probably ever had. This is mainly due to the fact that virtually all the former elite military officers of Saddam Hussein have joined ISIS. But it also has a very wide web of militants from all over the developed and developing countries around the Mediterranean, to perform unexpected and very striking, violent, inhumane terror operations. This is new. Pervious guerrilla organizations, whether the Viet Kong in Vietnam or the Eritrea Liberation Front on the Horn of African had extremely sophisticated war tactics and organization, but these were national liberation movements with very strong public support, with virtually no militants in the urban areas and definitely no foreign organization. Obviously some urban terror organizations supported the Viet Kong in Europe, like the Red Army Faction, but their support was more symbolic and there was no direct link between them.
What has durably changed this organizational structure was the 9/11 catastrophe in the United States. For the first time, a terror organization - al-Qaida - not having a very clear military base or support, achieved a major terror operation by using very rudimentary weapons and by taking hostage civilian airplanes. Al-Qaida's major asset was its extremely deleterious and extremely flexible structure. Everything was achieved through the Internet, among people who were not precisely al-Qaida members, but "lone wolves," psychologically deranged migrant origin personalities who would take action by themselves without al-Qaida guiding them or giving them precise orders. It was more like franchising to lonely terrorists on the part of al-Qaida.
ISIS has gone to a more sophisticated stage of organization. Very much like al-Qaida, it does not have a very structured, cell-based militant organization abroad. It is made up of nebulous people who live in hatred of all what developed countries represent, but most of the time these people are educated and well integrated in the societies they live in. A structured terror organization would have been discovered and annihilated long ago. This kind of organism is extremely difficult to track down and smell out.
The evident conclusion is that ISIS and others are the new form of terror in our ever-globalizing world. The subsequent evaluation to be made is that there can be no abandoned scenes of violence around the world. The Syrian tragedy is in direct relation with the terrible beheading in France, and probably Gaza is related to Souss. This will ask for a very large consensus among democratic countries for a more peaceful world, and time is extremely tight to start implementing such a workable consensus.
ISIS is perfectly capable to wage war at home, meaning in the Sunni-populated regions of both Iraq and Syria, in a very conventional way, with a tactical experience no terror organization has probably ever had. This is mainly due to the fact that virtually all the former elite military officers of Saddam Hussein have joined ISIS. But it also has a very wide web of militants from all over the developed and developing countries around the Mediterranean, to perform unexpected and very striking, violent, inhumane terror operations. This is new. Pervious guerrilla organizations, whether the Viet Kong in Vietnam or the Eritrea Liberation Front on the Horn of African had extremely sophisticated war tactics and organization, but these were national liberation movements with very strong public support, with virtually no militants in the urban areas and definitely no foreign organization. Obviously some urban terror organizations supported the Viet Kong in Europe, like the Red Army Faction, but their support was more symbolic and there was no direct link between them.
What has durably changed this organizational structure was the 9/11 catastrophe in the United States. For the first time, a terror organization - al-Qaida - not having a very clear military base or support, achieved a major terror operation by using very rudimentary weapons and by taking hostage civilian airplanes. Al-Qaida's major asset was its extremely deleterious and extremely flexible structure. Everything was achieved through the Internet, among people who were not precisely al-Qaida members, but "lone wolves," psychologically deranged migrant origin personalities who would take action by themselves without al-Qaida guiding them or giving them precise orders. It was more like franchising to lonely terrorists on the part of al-Qaida.
ISIS has gone to a more sophisticated stage of organization. Very much like al-Qaida, it does not have a very structured, cell-based militant organization abroad. It is made up of nebulous people who live in hatred of all what developed countries represent, but most of the time these people are educated and well integrated in the societies they live in. A structured terror organization would have been discovered and annihilated long ago. This kind of organism is extremely difficult to track down and smell out.
The evident conclusion is that ISIS and others are the new form of terror in our ever-globalizing world. The subsequent evaluation to be made is that there can be no abandoned scenes of violence around the world. The Syrian tragedy is in direct relation with the terrible beheading in France, and probably Gaza is related to Souss. This will ask for a very large consensus among democratic countries for a more peaceful world, and time is extremely tight to start implementing such a workable consensus.