Current Events > Terrorism in Europe will only get worse as ISIS fighters return home.

(+) Yeah! (+)

(Repost, a month ago, because it's still relevant)

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Let's take a long view. When does Islamist-inspired terrorism spike? Start here:

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Note on the chart the two times Islamist-inspired terror attacks on Europe spiked: 2004 and 2015. The 2004 spike came a year after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which gave Jihadists (a) somewhere to operate; and (b) grievances to exploit.

Point: Terrorists exploit instability. The moment you give them a place to operate out of, and grievances to exploit, they oblige. (This is also why it's important for us not to abandon Afghanistan, and why the Trump Administration was right to keep troops there to mow the lawn.)

Now, there's a direct link between the 2004 spike and the 2015 spike. The terror groups that existed post 2003 are the same ones active today. What we call the Islamic State used to be called al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQAI) before it changed its name and rebranded. The 2015 spike came a year after ISIS's 2014 "Caliphate" declaration, which came on the back of the unraveling of Syria.

The often forgotten story is that between 2006 and 2014, there were far fewer successful terror attacks in Europe. Check it out again.

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George W. Bush's Iraq "surge," plus working with Iraqi Sunni tribes (the "Anbar Awakening"), had crippled Jihadists in Iraq and denied them a haven by 2007/8. When Barack Obama had Bin Laden killed in May 2011, Jihadism had hit a low point ideologically and operationally. So the question is, what happened that resuscitated an almost-dead Jihadist terror threat? Was it ideology that resuscitated Jihadism? Was it religion? No -- ideology and religion are constants. What resuscitated them was the Syrian conflict.

It is impossible to honestly disconnect the current Jihadist wave from the fact that the world has largely stood by and allowed Syria to go to hell. The fact that terrorists struck London cannot be disconnected from the fact that the Syrian wound has been bleeding for six years. Countering poisonous ideologies is important, but we have to realize ideas don't exist in a vacuum... And we have to understand that we aren't separate. A wound on the face of our earth has become infected, and that infection affects us all.

Absent areas of instability where terrorists can find safe haven, terror incidents will still happen, but not nearly as bad... The existence of terror safe havens provides inspiration, operational support, and training. As the war against ISIS winds down, we are facing a perfect storm, for four reasons:

1. As ISIS loses its caliphate (devolving from a nation state back into a terrorist organization), there will be most pressure for them to show their presence, and hence more focus on external attacks.

2. Fighters will begin trickling back from the Islamic State to their native countries. There's no upside here: put them in jail, and they become spiritual leaders who'll convert followers from within the prison population; put them on the streets, and they'll become active again. (This is why Britain/France are trying to kill them all over there, instead of allowing them to come back.)

3. With no caliphate to "build," ISIS isn't recruiting "entrepeneurs" anymore, but crazy nutcases bent on suicide bombing, not "building a caliphate."

4. All of this happens at a time when anti-Muslim right-wing extremism is on the rise, making it even worse for everyone. Anti-Muslimism works to the Islamists' benefit; ostracizing and otherizing Muslims only serves to isolate, alienate, and drive impressionable youths towards terrorism.

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Therefore, a perfect storm is coming... Be ready for it. Don't be surprised when it arrives.