Al Qaeda's second front: Europe

[Mladen]

Al Qaeda's second front: Europe
Robert S. Leiken and Steven Brooke International Herald Tribune

FRIDAY, JULY 15, 2005



WASHINGTON The London bombings captured with photographic precision exactly where we are in the so-called war on terrorism. It is not more 9/11s we must worry about, but more Madrids and Londons. Harassed as it is, Al Qaeda has opened up a second front in Europe that will keep Europeans pinned down while the big war grinds on in Iraq.

The London attacks showed that local European jihadist groups are coalescing into a united front prepared to follow Osama bin Laden's global strategy, aiming selective and ever more carefully planned attacks on America's European allies in Iraq.

We can distinguish two types of candidate Muslim terrorists. There are the "outsiders": alien dissidents, typically asylum-seekers or students, who gained refuge in liberal Europe from anti-Islamist crackdowns in the Middle East.

More recently, security services have widened their attention to encompass "insiders": European-born descendants of guest workers recruited to shore up Europe's post-war "economic miracle."

Like Theo van Gogh's assassin in the Netherlands, the London bombers were born in Europe. At least three of the bombers were British nationals of Pakistani descent, as were the two terrorist gangs broken up by British police in April and August of 2004.

A leaked British government document notes that "most young [British] extremists fall into one of two groups: well-educated undergraduates or with degrees and technical professional qualifications in engineering or IT; or underachievers with few or no qualifications, and often a criminal background."


Add to this volatile mix 40 or so Britons who have struck out for Iraq's Sunni Triangle, reportedly with the assistance of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. After their front-line training in explosives and urban warfare, these Iraqi returnees would possess the requisite skill sets to advise and mentor a sleeper cell.

One thing is clear: We now have a second jihad front, located not in the Middle East or North Africa but in Western Europe.

Our Nixon Center database tracked 373 mujahedeen operating in the West from 1993 through 2004. We found more Britons than Yemenis, Sudanese, Emiratis, Lebanese or Libyans. There were twice as many Frenchmen as Saudis. Fully a quarter of our sample are Western European nationals, many of those second- or third-generation children of immigrants or native converts to Islam.

These European recruits offer a ready-made strike force in countries previously singled out by Al Qaeda's strategic planners. The London attack fits eerily well within a plan issued by Al Qaeda in December 2003. Entitled "Jihadi Iraq: Hopes and Dangers," the document outlined a strategy for the war in Iraq that involved splitting the United States off from the rest of the coalition.

The Spanish government was to be first on the Qaeda hit list in light of elections and the unpopularity of the war. It even foresaw the ruling party's electoral calamity and the resulting Spanish pullout.

The document concluded that Britain, too, could be forced to withdraw from Iraq under certain conditions. The first was an escalation of military casualties among the British in Iraq, the second was the departure of either Spain or Italy. With Spain picked off, the terrorists have moved on London.

The strategy does not stop there. On the Web postings claiming the London attacks, Denmark and Italy are identified as the next targets.

Europe offers inviting targets. Qaeda networks have proliferated in Western Europe and are springing up or recharging in Eastern Europe and the Balkans.

Then there is the burgeoning second generation of Muslim immigrants. London's bombers appeared to be part of this generation. These new jihadists have undergone a process of radicalization and form the seed bed and the host for terrorist networks.

The willingness of the latter to provide foot soldiers for Al Qaeda's Iraq strategy should provide Washington with the impetus to reach out to Europe with the message, Whatever you think of our Iraq policy (tragic blunder, visionary gamble, precipitous indiscretion), we are now in this together.

Europeans and Americans might thereby find a measure of bittersweet relief and intelligent resolve in concentrating their minds on this shared danger.

(Robert S. Leiken is director of the Immigration and National Security Program at the Nixon Center in Washington. His article ''Europe's Angry Muslims'' appears in the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs. Steven Brooke is a program assistant at the Nixon Center.)

WASHINGTON The London bombings captured with photographic precision exactly where we are in the so-called war on terrorism. It is not more 9/11s we must worry about, but more Madrids and Londons. Harassed as it is, Al Qaeda has opened up a second front in Europe that will keep Europeans pinned down while the big war grinds on in Iraq.

The London attacks showed that local European jihadist groups are coalescing into a united front prepared to follow Osama bin Laden's global strategy, aiming selective and ever more carefully planned attacks on America's European allies in Iraq.

We can distinguish two types of candidate Muslim terrorists. There are the "outsiders": alien dissidents, typically asylum-seekers or students, who gained refuge in liberal Europe from anti-Islamist crackdowns in the Middle East.

More recently, security services have widened their attention to encompass "insiders": European-born descendants of guest workers recruited to shore up Europe's post-war "economic miracle."

Like Theo van Gogh's assassin in the Netherlands, the London bombers were born in Europe. At least three of the bombers were British nationals of Pakistani descent, as were the two terrorist gangs broken up by British police in April and August of 2004.

A leaked British government document notes that "most young [British] extremists fall into one of two groups: well-educated undergraduates or with degrees and technical professional qualifications in engineering or IT; or underachievers with few or no qualifications, and often a criminal background."


Add to this volatile mix 40 or so Britons who have struck out for Iraq's Sunni Triangle, reportedly with the assistance of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. After their front-line training in explosives and urban warfare, these Iraqi returnees would possess the requisite skill sets to advise and mentor a sleeper cell.

One thing is clear: We now have a second jihad front, located not in the Middle East or North Africa but in Western Europe.

Our Nixon Center database tracked 373 mujahedeen operating in the West from 1993 through 2004. We found more Britons than Yemenis, Sudanese, Emiratis, Lebanese or Libyans. There were twice as many Frenchmen as Saudis. Fully a quarter of our sample are Western European nationals, many of those second- or third-generation children of immigrants or native converts to Islam.

These European recruits offer a ready-made strike force in countries previously singled out by Al Qaeda's strategic planners. The London attack fits eerily well within a plan issued by Al Qaeda in December 2003. Entitled "Jihadi Iraq: Hopes and Dangers," the document outlined a strategy for the war in Iraq that involved splitting the United States off from the rest of the coalition.

The Spanish government was to be first on the Qaeda hit list in light of elections and the unpopularity of the war. It even foresaw the ruling party's electoral calamity and the resulting Spanish pullout.

The document concluded that Britain, too, could be forced to withdraw from Iraq under certain conditions. The first was an escalation of military casualties among the British in Iraq, the second was the departure of either Spain or Italy. With Spain picked off, the terrorists have moved on London.

The strategy does not stop there. On the Web postings claiming the London attacks, Denmark and Italy are identified as the next targets.

Europe offers inviting targets. Qaeda networks have proliferated in Western Europe and are springing up or recharging in Eastern Europe and the Balkans.

Then there is the burgeoning second generation of Muslim immigrants. London's bombers appeared to be part of this generation. These new jihadists have undergone a process of radicalization and form the seed bed and the host for terrorist networks.

The willingness of the latter to provide foot soldiers for Al Qaeda's Iraq strategy should provide Washington with the impetus to reach out to Europe with the message, Whatever you think of our Iraq policy (tragic blunder, visionary gamble, precipitous indiscretion), we are now in this together.

Europeans and Americans might thereby find a measure of bittersweet relief and intelligent resolve in concentrating their minds on this shared danger.

(Robert S. Leiken is director of the Immigration and National Security Program at the Nixon Center in Washington. His article ''Europe's Angry Muslims'' appears in the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs. Steven Brooke is a program assistant at the Nixon Center.)